Investigations
by Roguepen
Summary: Ron and Harry have finally begun official Auror training, but some old habits die hard as a new instructor may have ulterior motives for accepting his position. With Harry in the field, Ron must work alone and solve a mystery where not all is not as it appears.
1. Holly and Willow

**Holly and Willow**

Theme: Potential and Protection

 _July 21_ _st_ _, 1998_

Ron took the empty seat in the back of the classroom next to Harry and looked at the grotesque sign over the chalkboard. It was a white banner featuring a healer and a man who was covered in blood in a hospital bed. The caption below was not at all heartwarming.

 _The Healers can't always save you_

Pleasant way to start the morning.

The paperwork had said they were going to be assigned full mentors for the rest of their training instead of just being assigned to different senior Aurors for each mission. There were going to be a few short tests to help get beneficial partners.

Though apparently some of the senior Aurors had been asking for some mentees specifically.

Ron looked over at Harry; Ron understood all of the requesting and knew what it was probably about.

Granted these were mostly personality and situational tests. Short ones, according to what Kingsley had told them at dinner a couple of nights ago. Ron only remembered this bit because his mum had pulled a ham out of the oven and put it directly in front of him.

Which now made him associate testing with honey-cooked ham.

He would have to fix that.

Harry was flipping through the paperwork that was left on the desk. It was a liability contract; it was so none of the students could sue the teacher if they had… _accidents_ during training that ended it loss of life or limb.

The man in front of Ron groaned, "My mother is not going to like hearing about this."

Ron made a noise of agreement that caused the man to turn around.

"You're a Weasley, and that's Harry Potter."

Gold star. Gold star for him.

The man was blond with bright blue eyes on a round pleasant face. His nose was a bit on the large side and his uniform was perfectly pressed. Ron remembered him from a previous assignment.

What was his name?

"I'm really excited to be in class with the both of you. You were only a year behind me in school."

Reed…?

"So, where's Granger? She in another class?"

Readdie…?

Ron and Harry shook their heads in unison; Ron was the one who answered while Harry finished signing his paperwork. "She's got other plans, wants to finish her education."

The man grinned, "Always liked her. Smart as whip that woman. I debated her in the library once, she's vicious."

Reeve! Frank Reeve! That was it.

Reeve stuck his hand out to Ron, "I came here straight out of school, if you two need anything let me know." He grinned, "I look forward to working with you two."

"Yeah, same." Ron responded politely, making note to ask Hermione about debates she had in the library while Reeve shook hands with Harry who was asking Reeve about what he knew about the classes and the teacher.

"I'll give you the details later, but the short version is he's a bit mad, from what I've heard. Hear he's got an apprentice who doesn't work in the department."

There was a loud banging noise as the door swung open and rebounded off the wall. An old man staggered in putting most of his weight on a wooden cane that had some distinct notches on it. He carried a bundle of paperwork under his other arm. He dropped the papers on his desk at the front of the room.

The room grew silent, he was a new face. He had not been a part of the Ireland ruse mission. Then again, that was a pretty horrid limp he had, it would be enough to keep him out of any real active combat situations.

My name is Septimus Lowell, I'll be teaching your class on dark magic and the various forms you will see during your time in this department."

Ron looked at his schedule again along with half of the class. Dark magic studies were not on the list for classes this morning. It said basic field combat on the schedule.

A woman up front raised her hand. "Auror Lowell-"

"Mr. Lowell is fine. I left the department long before any of you were being thought about." Lowell cut in quickly and tapped his cane on the floor and his name and preferred title appeared on the board behind him. "Anyway, continue."

"Mr. Lowell, it says basic combat is our first lesson on our schedule."

"Because the secretaries in this department are old and set in their ways. This is what I was brought here to teach you and that's what I will teach you."

Another hand went up, "What did you do after you left the department?"

"Made myself overqualified to teach this class."

Ron grinned and signed his name on the contracts in front of him.

A third student raised his hand, "How did you do that?"

"By not asking inane questions."

A fourth student made to raise his hand; Lowell interrupted him before he could ask anything.

"If you do not know a word I suggest you look it up. I also recommend you all read more books to better your vocabulary, so you don't have to look up every word more intelligent people use when speaking with you."

No other hands went up. Reeve leaned back thoughtfully in his chair.

"Now, you have some paperwork in front of you that will need to be filled out and I will then send you to see Auror Heathers who will administer your skill assessment test, among others, to help determine who will be best to mentor you."

He tapped his cane on the floor and curtains appeared out of nowhere to block the windows.

 _We're underground._

When fifteen minutes had passed Lowell asked for their papers and sent them on to a room at the end of the hallway where an old woman stood there waiting for them and sent them into the room in random groups of three picked off the list in her hands.

Ron was grouped with Frank Reeve and a woman named Amelia Cooper, a tall dark woman with glasses and hair pulled back in many braids.

Auror Heathers sent them in and closed the door behind them and immediately Ron felt like they were being watched.

They were standing in a city alley, but there were no sounds of people, no ringing of shop bells, it felt wrong. The twists and turns ahead were all Ron could see. There was no straight path ahead.

A voice suddenly echoed through the room.

 _"Find your way out of this maze using whatever means you deem appropriate."_

Cooper, Reeve and Ron exchanged looks.

Cooper took the lead, her wand at the ready.

Reeve fell in behind her.

Ron grinned, as he took the back position as they took a turn and Ron marked it on the wall with a Flagarte spell.

"Reeve, take point for me if we find anything nasty."

"No problem."

Ron marked the two turns they had taken on the walls and noticed the wall ahead was already marked.

"Hey, we might have a problem."

"What's the problem, Weasley?" Cooper asked briskly.

"We've been here before, I've been marking the walls." He pointed at the red X on the wall.

"Shit, illusion charm." Cooper said as she whipped out her wand as the tip lit with a blue light and started examining the walls around them. "Give me a few minutes and I'll get us out of here."

There was a noise coming from down one of the short streets they had already been down. Reeve stepped forward; Ron kept watch on the other two streets as a fog rolled in.

"What kind of sick test is this?" Reeve blocked a curse from where the noise was coming from.

Cooper made a move to stop her spell to watch down one of the other streets.

"Cooper, don't stop! Break the illusion, we'll watch your back!" Ron shouted as he threw up a shield charm down the two streets he was watching and threw a spell over Reeve's head down the alley to try and disperse the fog. It didn't work.

"Weasley, just keep those shield charms up!"

Cooper's focus grew stronger while Reeve fired off every spell he could until his opponent stopped firing back.

As soon as Reeve defeated his unseen opponent, Cooper broke through the illusion charm and the three of them were standing in an empty room. Ron looked up to see them being watched by Lowell, Heathers and who he assumed to be a couple of the other instructors.

There was another man behind them. It was Kingsley Shacklebolt and he had a rather satisfied grin on his face as he talked with the instructors. There was a small security guard behind Kingsley who was paying attention to something Lowell was saying with arms crossed. Kingsley looked at Ron thoughtfully before he turned and left the viewing area with the little security guard trailing after him.

Kingsley had complained about being required bodyguards at dinner last week. Ron was willing to guess that one security guard in the ministry itself was a compromise to stop him from losing his mind at the idea.

 _"Congratulations,"_ It was Auror Heathers speaking from the viewing box, pulling Ron out of his thoughts. _"If you can step through this door please and go back to your classroom you'll have your mentor assignments sometime tomorrow."_

"That was fun," Cooper said offhandedly, as she opened the door. "We should do this again sometime."

"Oh, for sure," Reeve said, "Maybe next time they'll put us somewhere warm and sunny. Like the beach."

"We get sun in England?" Ron shot back causing the rest of his team to chuckle.

They waited quietly for the rest of their class to finish up the test with Harry and his team arriving next, looking very frazzled as they took their seats.

"What did they do to you?" Ron asked as Harry fell into his seat and started rubbing his scar. "You look terrible."

"Hardwick thought it would be fun to split up and ran off after some light he saw up ahead. We had to save him from the hole he fell into."

"Where did the hole come from?"

"He said it opened up beneath him suddenly while he was getting his bearings."

Ron laughed as the rest of their class finally arrived.

The class started pretty normally, until Lowell pulled down some large diagrams of ritual murder sites and what people believed about how that worked in great detail that left more then a few students extremely sick to their stomachs and put off their lunch.

Ron was deeply suppressing his urge to gag until the bell rang.

There was a little bit of time to go and study in the Ministry's rather extensive library before lunch. Ron was playing chess with Cooper who was losing badly while her pieces screamed at her. Ron was just trying to get those pictures out of his head.

"If he's not an Auror anymore, why would he come here to teach?" Harry asked suddenly as he stared blankly at the book he was holding about cursed objects.

Reeve shrugged, "Maybe to keep the law off his back, he has a record with the ministry for suspected illegal dealings in magical artifacts."

"Suspected?" Harry put the book in his bag and looked at the clock. Ron moved his bishop down the board before looking over at Reeve and Harry while Amelia Cooper grabbed her hair in deep thought of her next move.

"He's wily, no one's really been able to catch him at it and formally charge him for it," Reeve leaned in towards the rest of the group with a conspiratorial whisper.

"You said his assistant was working in another department," Cooper had given up on her next move for the moment, deciding to put in her two knuts while her chess pieces yelled about potential moves she still had on the board.

"That's the part I think is a bit odd, they're both working out of similar departments, only the security guards are stationed within the Ministry itself. Privy to all sorts of information, the guards are a bunch of gossips you know. If there's something going on around here, believe me, the guards and the secretaries found out about it first."

"How do you know all of this, Reeve?" Cooper asked.

Reeve fidgeted in his chair, "I officially joined the Auror program out of school, but with things being as they were, the senior staff moved as many of us into obscure departments to protect us from the Death Eaters in charge. I wound up in the filing office where they keep records of people suspected of various minor crimes. I read a lot, not too much to do in that department. That's where I found Lowell's file; it was the most interesting one I found in two weeks. It includes a list of known associates, and everyone who's worked for him in some capacity." Reeve paused before continuing, "There is also a small file on his assistant, a girl who worked as his shop assistant who now works in security, Audrey Causey's her name."

"You know her, Reeve?" Cooper asked as she looked him right in the eyes.

"She was in my year and house at school. Quiet, never heard her talk much, but I always got the idea she was more ambitious then she let on. She was always reading books on advanced spell craft and runes."

"You think he's using his assistant to find something for him?"

"Maybe. It would make sense considering everything I found in his file," Reeve paused thoughtfully before turning to look at Ron and Harry. "Part of being an Auror is understanding how other people think, what they want and what methods they have at their disposal to get what they want. Lowell has a lot of methods at his disposal from one little, seemingly insignificant resource." Reeve closed his book as the clock chimed for lunch. "I'll see you all after lunch."

Cooper groaned, "I surrender for now, Weasley." She got out of her chair and tossed her bag over her shoulder. "We'll settle this another time." She grinned and sauntered off to go to lunch with a lady who was waving at her from the entrance to the study room. They greeted each other with a kiss and walked off arm in arm.

"I miss Hermione," Ron packed up his chessboard and looked at Harry. "Want to go eat lunch with my dad?"

Harry pulled an envelope out of his pocket with the official department seal on it. "Sorry Ron, I have a meeting with Williamson. Said he wants to talk about something with me over lunch."

"Good for you mate! Still on for dinner on Sunday?"

"Wouldn't miss it!" Harry took off to make it to his appointment on time leaving Ron alone with his bag lunch from his mum and his own thoughts, questions and mystery pulling at his brain.

Ron could not let Reeve dictate the course of this whole conversation about their strange teacher. He would have to do some investigating of his own, because Reeve had one good point. Lowell was a very suspicious man with a record.

He got on the lift and wondered how to start that kind of conversation. Ron stepped off on his dad's floor and noted the nervous looking security guard working the floor flipping through some paperwork and taking notes before moving on down the hallway.

Perhaps he should just play this by ear.

He knocked on his dad's office door when the voice sounded from the other side Ron swung the door open and made for the empty chair across from his dad.

"Lowell's a bloody lunatic!" Ron dropped into the chair and made himself comfortable.

"Hello to you too, Ron."

Ron opened his lunch and started placing its contents on the desk. "All he talks about is dark magic and ritual killing." He paused and examined his sandwich.

Roast beef.

Yuck.

Ron looked around the office as he put the sandwich back in the bag and opened the small container of pie that his mum had packed for him. He set that to the side and picked up the apple instead and looked around the office. Arthur's office was bigger and had a bit more room than when he was working in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office two years ago. There was room for a small bookshelf of case law, a book of known curses that looked interesting and a short series of books on how muggle inventions responded to magic.

"Isn't that what he's supposed to be teaching you, Ron?" Arthur looked tired; the bags under his eyes had been there since May. Ron moved his gaze to the apple in his hand. The last few months had been emotionally draining. The whole family was out of sorts, like the life had drained from their eyes.

When his mum had stopped crying she started mollycoddling the rest of her family. It was getting to the point where Ron was starting to get a bit testy. He wanted to spend more time out of the house and doing things on his own, but he had to ease his way out so he would not hurt his mum's feelings or anyone else's.

Ron liked to think he now had the emotional range of _two_ teaspoons.

"Yes, but I don't see how a two hour lecture on ritual murders is supposed to help us fight dark wizards." He took a bite out of his apple.

Arthur started shuffling some of the paperwork on his desk.

"Ron, he's very smart and has trained at least one talented duelist. I'm sure he has his reasons for the things he does."

Ron felt his attention grabbed at that statement. "Who did he train?"

"Audrey, his apprentice, she's working for security now. You might have seen her on the way here, she's been assigned to the security desk by the lift and a couple of other places she can't tell me too much about."

Ron remembered the little mousey looking woman he had passed on his way up from the training room. Her pale blue eyes were nervously darting around the room. She looked more like a runner than a fighter.

"What do you mean by apprentice?"

Arthur shrugged, "She's more of a private student of his is how she explained it to me when I asked. He teaches her advanced magic, she helps him do research and write papers."

"Okay, then define talented, she looks like a strong wind would knock her over."

Arthur put his papers on the corner of his desk and pulled his toolbox out of one of his desk drawers. "She and her friend helped me get to the Minister's office to rescue your brother."

Ron laughed in disbelief. "Really? What if I don't believe you?"

Arthur shook his head before reaching for the toaster in the box next to his desk. He was quiet for the few moments it took to arrange his tools and the toaster on his desk before he decided to speak.

"You should have seen what she did to their leader down in the atrium." He paused to examine the electrical plug on the toaster. "It was brutal."

Ron remembered that fight, or the very tail end of it. His dad's statement sent a flash of recognition through his brain. He had been working with Kingsley that day when the call went out about suspected Death Eater activity in the far north of Ireland. The Aurors realized they had been fed false information and came back as quickly as they could only to find complete chaos in the atrium. The smell had burned Ron's throat with something _more_ than smoke and fire, and screams of the injured filled his ears.

"I came in at the end, she attacked me for trying to help her to a safer area." Audrey had knocked him flat on his ass before running after the bleeding man with murder in her eyes. When they both disappeared from Ron's sight, the building shook so violently that everyone was knocked back onto the floor.

Ron did not see her again until the family went to visit Percy in Saint Mungo's. Granted, she looked different then she did before. More rested, was what came to mind. Also that her face was not longer covered in streaks of soot and blood. Still, she was asleep and Ron had really paid no more then a passing glance to the reckless woman.

"She sounds a bit mad, I think," Ron reached into his lunch box for a second apple.

"I don't think so."

"You sure? I mean who would-"

He was interrupted by a forceful knock on the door.

"Come in," Arthur moved his toolbox and toaster back into the box next to his desk.

Ron turned to see his mother open the door holding a lunchbox. He made sure the roast beef sandwich was hidden in his lunchbox away from her prying eyes.

"Arthur, you forgot your lunch on the counter again."

"Ah, thank you, Molly."

"Third time this week, dear." She set it down on his desk and fiddled with the visitor's badge on her chest.

"Only because I miss you."

Ron started coughing to make it more obvious that he was in the room.

"How were your lessons, Ron?"

"Fine, absolutely fine, mum. The teacher's a nutter but what else is new?"

" _Ronald!"_

Her face was halfway to saber tooth tiger, usually enough to perturb the unsuspecting Weasley children and instill unholy terror into those unfamiliar with her quick temper.

Ron was saved from a lecture by a tentative knock on the door.

Arthur told them to come in, while Ron commented on how popular this office was.

The door opened slowly to reveal the security witch from the desk by the lift. Ron got a better look at her this time. The uniform was a size to big for her small frame. Her eyes were an eerie pale blue color that made Ron a bit nervous.

"Mr. Weasley, Minister Shacklebolt wanted me to deliver this to you." She pulled a piece of parchment from behind her back and held it out as she walked into the room. She seemed to be taking in the entire room, her eyes lingering longer on Ron and the handle of his wand poking out of his holster.

"Ah, thank you Audrey." Arthur stepped forward and took the parchment from Audrey and turned to look at Ron.

"Ron, Molly this is Audrey, the girl I told you about. Audrey this is my son Ron, he's just joined Auror training and this is my wife Molly."

Molly examined Audrey closely, while Audrey seemed to be trying to will herself into a state of invisibility.

"Are you feeling any better?"

"Y-Yes, ma'am! Much better."

Molly's expression grew thoughtful. "Our dinner offer still stands, we have big family dinners every Sunday."

"I'd love to Mrs. Weasley, but I'm really quite busy most days and don't really have the option to get away for a few hours."

"Hm, well, we'll have to move dinner to a night you're free one week and see how that goes. What do you think, dear?"

"I think that's a wonderful idea, Molly."

Audrey's eyes widened slightly before reaching out her hand to shake Ron's, "It's nice to meet you, Ron. I hope Septimus isn't being too hard on you."

She had a soft voice, and seemed nervous. Ron took her hand politely and noted her firm grip.

Sarcasm being a second language to Ron, he was unable to help what came out of his mouth next. "Oh, he's a complete manic."

Ron risked a cheeky glance at his mum who looked like she was suppressing a lot of things she wanted to say to him at the moment.

"Try living with him." She responded flatly before she turned back to his mother while Ron managed to turn a laugh into a loud, sick sounding cough.

Ron watched his mum talk a bit more with Audrey while looking around the girl to glare at him. There was a slight tremble in Audrey's left hand as she made slight additions to the conversation with his mum. The two women where about the same height, Audrey was not much taller then his mum. Molly soon turned her attention back to her husband and Audrey swiftly backed out of the room. A notable stiffness in her body.

Odd?

No.

Molly Weasley was a scary woman.

Suspicious?

Hell yes.

Maybe Reeve was right. Maybe Lowell had an ulterior motive for coming to teach in the Auror department. Perhaps he had help from his apprentice who could access places he could not?

Ron thought it might be worth looking into. If Lowell and his apprentice were planning a coup of some sort, then Ron wanted to find out what exactly was going on before it came to a head.

* * *

 **A/N:** Alright, I am a fool. I've had a rough draft of this fic on my flash drive for a couple of years. Couldn't figure out how to tell it.

I decided to use wand woods for titles for what the wood represents in the wielders personality.


	2. Cedar and Elm

**Cedar and Elm**

Theme: Perspicacity and Presence

 _July 22_ _nd_ _, 1998_

Ron had a lot of things to say to Minister Shacklebolt that morning. Though it was hard to remember what those things were when his security staff was playing cards at their desk in front of his office entrance.

The tall, blonde woman with the thick glasses she kept adjusted laid down a full house with a happy exclamation while Audrey groaned and laid down a terrible hand that made Ron wince.

"Is Kingsley in yet?" Ron asked, surprising the women who both tried to hide their cards, the blonde shoving them down the front of her robes while Audrey jammed them into the drawer of their shared desk.

"It's seven in the morning, you numpty," The blonde woman said as she fixed her glasses the way someone who was not used to wearing them would, like they were an annoyance she had to tolerate. There was a jack of hearts peeking out of her robes. "No one gets here for another half-hour, they gotta get through security."

"Lucia, be nice!" Audrey hissed as she tried to covertly close the desk drawer where she had shoved her cards.

Ron pulled a letter out of his pocket and held it out towards Audrey, who he assumed was the nicer of the two. "I'm pretty sure he's here."

Audrey read it quietly and let the blonde read over her shoulder.

The blonde sighed and pointed at the door. "The door next to the cubicle is the minister's office, can't miss it, it's labeled."

Ron thanked them while Audrey unlocked the door and swung it open with a flick of her wand before returning the letter.

Ron stepped inside and paused to look around as the door closed behind him. It was a large office, tall ceiling with two desks that sat on opposite sides of the room on a wooden floor, both in front of a bookshelves containing various volumes of miscellaneous topics related to government and law among other things. Ron spotted Percy's desk pretty quickly (the nameplate helped) and went to move his basket of quills to the opposite corner, just to make him crazy before finding the door to the Minister's office at the other end of the room. Next to the door was a cubicle where Ron assumed the last of Kingsley's direct staff worked. Not a people person, probably.

The floor creaked and groaned as Ron walked forward intently and swung the door open.

"Kingsley!"

He was eating oatmeal as his desk while reading the paper.

"Good morning, Ron."

He closed his newspaper and put his oatmeal on the corner of the desk, looked over at Ron and motioned for him to sit down.

Ron declined to sit, and noticed that the room smelled of old smoke before doing what he came here to do. He slammed the letter he received that morning onto Kingsley's desk.

"I'm a better duelist than Upton, better at sneaking around then Yates and I have crossed wands with most of the Death Eaters we're still looking for! Why are you trying to put me on a desk job?"

"It's the strategy sector, not a desk job."

"I don't see the difference! I'm still off the field because it says you want to mentor me and you have done nothing but, er, Minister stuff for the last two weeks." Ron paused, "Everyone else left for a field mission to track down Selwyn and Travers this morning and I am the only one who is sitting a desk job!"

Kingsley leaned back and pulled a file out of his desk drawer and motioned for Ron to sit down again before handing Ron the manila folder.

"There is a lot more to mentor assignments then just passing a bunch of tests. I put in place a system of interviews with your professors at school to see clarify who would be a good fit for a particular section." Kingsley reached over and opened the folder that Ron had laid down on the desk. "Professor McGonagall wrote a glowing report of your talents in chess. It was part of the reason I wanted to train you myself and get you into my old section."

Ron finally sat down.

"I worked in strategy and information, it's desk work but I took surveillance and planned missions, scouted locations and lead sensitive field missions. It's making plans that you can change in a hurry, and from what I know of you, I thought it would be something you would enjoy more then the wands akimbo styling of some of the other Aurors."

Well, now Ron felt terrible.

"I can't give you the my full attention, so I am dividing your training with one of the senior strategy Aurors, her name is Dawn Hopper, she's on maternity leave for another month, but she's been doing work from home considering our present circumstances." Kingsley summoned a few books off of the bookshelf behind him and placed them in front of Ron. She'd like to meet you over lunch in a couple of weeks when you have finished these books and a few small things for me."

"Like what?"

"Well-"

There was a knock at the door that stole Kingsley's attention.

"Door's open, come on in!"

Audrey stepped into the room as quietly as a ghost. "Minister, the Head of the Magical Transportation wants to speak with you. Something about broomstick regulations."

"Ah, thank you Audrey. If you could give me another few minutes before sending him in I would appreciate it."

Audrey nodded politely before giving Ron a once over and walking quietly out of the room.

"Ron, I want you to read these books and come discuss what you have learned from them with me at the end of the week. Also," Kingsley pulled out a plain leather book from his desk drawer. "I find keeping notes to be something that helps me think. I hope this will help you the same way."

Ron picked the books up off the desk and examined them, the gold written covers and beaten leather bindings. Somehow, this felt different then getting hand-me-down textbooks and robes. It felt deeply personal. The journal for notes was brand new for Merlin's sake!

"Thank you Kingsley. I'll do my best."

"Now, I have another favor to ask before you go," Kingsley stood up and adjusted his collar so he looked more ministerial and put a fatherly hand on Ron's shoulder. "I've received interesting reports about some things going on in the Ministry. If you find out anything, I would like to know about it."

"What kind of things?"

Kingsley's brow furrowed, "Some people will never recover from what they have gone through. There are groups rising to power over how Muggle-borns are treated within the magical world. Which is something I hope to begin the process of fixing. I think there are outside forces at work within the Ministry, and I want you to follow up on anything you find suspicious while you are _studying._ "

Ron caught his meaning quickly. "Yes, sir."

"Good, now I think we both have other things to be doing. I'll send you another owl when I'm free to meet with you again."

"Thank you Kingsley," Ron said as he nodded his head while Kingsley escorted him out of his office and sent Ron on his way. Kingsley greeted the Head of Magical Transportation and ushered him into his office.

Ron was still shocked and surprised by his good fortune; so much so that he could not even notice and enjoy his brother's neurotic moment of realizing the stuff on his desk had been moved. He did not notice the security witches had gone back to playing cards, nor did he remember entering the lift.

It was weird to feel like Harry.

Now he just needed someplace quiet to read. Not a problem he was accustomed to having.

Ron was the funny sidekick, used to being overshadowed in every aspect of his life practically since he was born. His older brothers had already accomplished everything he could have done; Ginny was special for being the first Weasley daughter in seven generations. In some respects, he knew that he could have stepped out and done more, but the comments of being just like Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George would have been too much. Ron wanted his own niche and perhaps being an Auror was going to be the way he did that on his own terms.

Ron stepped into the lift and stepped off on a random floor for a quick look around to look for a place to study the books Kingsley had given him. He did not have to walk to far before he found a sign over a door that read _Records Office._

Perfect.

The records office was the office that Reeve had mentioned being assigned to during the war. Ron figured it would be quiet and when he stepped inside he was pleased to realize that it was, the only noise he heard was the scratching of quills on paper and someone sneezing loudly in the back. There had to be a free table somewhere.

He peered down the rows of files of old court cases until he saw an empty table at the back. He made a beeline for it and set his books down quietly and sat down, opening his journal to take notes on the strike patterns used in river areas. There was also a through section on known tracking spells and their limits. Tracking spells are difficult to master and hard to maintain for extended periods of time. An essential, but rarely used part of an Auror's arsenal for their difficulty.

Ron wrote down the spells and the page number that explained how to do them so he could go home and practice them or try them in the practice room later. There were small notes written my Kingsley in the margins, _paper due Monday, finals approaching._

Kingsley as an Auror Trainee probably spent much more time in the library then most of the other trainees, Ron decided.

Ron grinned at the thought and checked his pocket watch. He had been here for an hour, he decided to take a short break and stretched his arms up to get some feeling back in his body, wincing at the cracking noise from his shoulders. Ron tilted his head to get the feeling back into the rest of his upper body and yawned and looked around to see if there was anyone around.

There was no one in sight.

Except for that girl Audrey from the Minister's office.

She worked security, why was she looking in the records department? Kingsley had security to escort him around the Ministry and to his meetings, odd to see one of his primary escorts away from their charge.

Audrey was hunched in such a way that she was obviously trying not to attract attention while she ran her finger over the labels for each file. Her demeanor growing slightly more agitated the longer she looked at the very edge of the aisle opposite of Ron.

" _Psst_! Ron!" The voice was quiet and came from the aisle behind his table causing Ron to jump and turn around to find the source.

"Reeve? I thought you were on the raid?"

"We were checking out another location, I think the other team had more luck considering just my squad is back." He looked around, "Why are you here?"

"Studying."

Reeve took a seat in the empty chair next to Ron and put his head down on the table. "That mission was ridiculously short." Reeve heaved a sigh and looked up and noticed Audrey flipping casually through files, seeming to grow more discontent with what she was finding before putting them back on the shelf.

"Now, I wonder what she's looking for?" Reeve whispered.

That got Ron's attention, "I couldn't tell how anything was sorted when I came down here, how did you know that."

"I'd go read shelves when I was staffed down here. Still come down here sometimes. Now the unsorted files are the ones that are mostly backlog cases that have not been taken to the courts yet or sorted if charges were not pressed and they just want the record. I'm surprised a security guard can get down here to look a those, she must have high clearance."

"She's one of the Minister's guards, saw her up there this morning."

"That would explain it and I can't say I'm too am surprised. Like I said before, she's more ambitious then she would ever let on. Top grades, overqualified for security if you ask me, should be an assistant in one on the big departments. It's too odd, I think she's planning something."

Ron had a passing thought that she could be involved in one of the radical postwar groups that were forming.

"Do you know where she was during the war?"

Reeve shrugged, "She's Muggle-born, could have been anywhere. Muggle-borns for Reformation probably would reach out to her, the other groups are apparently less interested in strictly Muggle-born issues."

Ron looked down at his spell notes in his book as Reeve got to his feet with a yawn as the clock chimed the hour and Audrey left the office.

"I'll look into it, if nothing else it's something to do and might lead us to something bigger down the road." Reeve grinned, "Besides, you don't want to push parchment for the Ministry do you?"

"Not really," Ron said quickly.

"I'll keep you informed then. I'll see you in Lowell's class after lunch."

"I'll be there," Ron sighed as Reeve disappeared in the stacks like a ghost and left Ron alone with his books and his thoughts.

He still had four hours until lunch.

* * *

Ron groaned as he set his lunch down at a table in the dining room and dropped his books on detecting and planning strike raids on the table next to his two bowls of pudding. He was relieved to find out the Ministry did have a dining room and it would save him from roast beef sandwiches from his mother for a few sickles.

He had a small table in the back behind a half wall that his him from view if he bent over his books, there was a larger table next to him on the other side of the small wall with a booth seat like the one he was sitting in, but he did not think anyone would come sit there until more staff came down for lunch.

Ron was wrong a lot.

He made his peace with that long ago.

After about ten minutes of silence there was a sudden clamoring of voices and dishes as Ron started shoveling his pudding into his mouth.

"Lucia, you need to be nicer to people, you don't make friends by calling people dimwits." The woman had very relaxed, kind of raspy voice.

"Tell Felix to take back what he said about the Derbyshire Ducks!"

"You won the bet, you fool, what's it matter what I said afterwards?" It was a man's voice this time. "Am I right, Piper? Percy, Audrey, what do you two think?"

Merlin's pants!

Percy had _friends?_

There was a brief second of silence from the group before the last two voices spoke in unison. _"We don't care!"_

Ron heard them all slide into their seats, he leaned down a little closer to his pudding to he could eat and stay out of sight. He looked at the empty seats across from him, wishing Harry or Hermione were there to talk with. He finished his pudding quickly and pulled over one of his strategy books and settled in to look at the diagrams while listening to the conversation next to him.

"Get your head out the book, Aud, you've read it three times!"

"Put your glasses on, Lucia, it's a different book."

"Perce, where is your crossword?"

"It was a reprint from last week, didn't see the point in doing it again if I remember the answers."

 _Of course_ he remembered the answers.

Ron turned his attention to his own books and felt his mind begin to wander. Hermione's bushy hair as she hunched over a book while she sucked on a sugar quill to help think her way through a particular passage; Harry pulling out a fake wand to mock sword fight with Ron from the other side of the table in a brief break from studying. He wondered what Harry was doing right now. Probably something heroic. Ron knew what Hermione was doing, from the conversation they had early that morning through Harry's old two-way mirrors, she was helping her parents pack their bags to come home.

Hell, Neville would have been good company right now, but he was with his mentor on the same mission Harry was.

He opened the blank journal that Kinsley gave him and drew a series of terrible looking stick figures of his friends before tearing it out and stuffing it in his bag. Merlin forbid anyone saw that.

"Are any of you free tonight?" The woman called Piper asked, "I'm hoping to have a game night or something this week if you all want to come."

"We would love to! Right, Audie?"

"Don't call me Audie, _Lucy_."

Lucia made a disgusted noise that made Ron work to repress a chuckle.

Audrey spoke again, quiet but polite and firm, "I'll have to check my schedule, but I should be free for the rest of the week."

"I'm in too," Felix chimed in, "I can teach you all Luck of Merlin."

"What's that, Felix?" Percy asked.

"Card game, you'll like it. If you can stop reading Audrey's book over her shoulder for a few minutes."

"I'll have take a rain check too," Percy replied, "The Minister has some meetings I may have to take notes for."

"All work and no play makes Percy a dull boy," Piper's teasing tone was playful and edged with laughter. "I'll plan around everyone's schedule, how does that sound?"

"Do what you like, Piper." There was a creaking and squeaking noise; "I need to go take care of some interdepartmental filing for the Minister. I'll see you all tomorrow."

There were commutative noises of agreement and a few attempts at conversation to get him to stay a few more minutes while Ron pushed his plate to the side and decided to head to the Auror Office to see who was back from the raid besides Reeve.

When Percy finally managed to get away from his talkative friends Ron began to pack up his books. Ron was relieved when Percy left, the wounds of separation were healing but it was hard to acknowledge how little they really knew each other.

"His butt's nice, Aud, but close your mouth."

 _"Lucia!"_

Ron was leaving now.

It did not feel fast enough.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** _That one friend, we all have one.

I am going to try and finish this story by the end of the month. I've been pulling extra hours at work with my coworker out on medical leave and I've been looking to move and find a new job because I am sick to death of hotel work (meaning laundry, I also do the front desk and breakfast occasionally). Also, I am applying for an online Master's program because it is cheap and gives me more freedom.


	3. Vine

**Vine**

Theme: Hidden depths, seeking of a greater purpose

 _July 24, 1998_

That old two-way mirror of Harry's was a godsend to long distance talks with one Hermione Granger. Sure the distance made her voice softer and patchy, and the occasional crackle slipped through, but it was good to see her face every few days. Hermione said that her head disappearing in the fireplace scared her parents; her mother had apparently screamed and dropped a plate of scones the first time they had tried to talk over the floo network back in sixth year.

Hermione had proclaimed that this was better for her mother's nerves.

Ron merely preferred to keep his talks with her private and out of the family fireplace.

"Hermione? You there?"

The mirror flickered for a moment.

"Yes, just a minute, Ron."

"Fixing your hair again?"

"It's so hot here it makes my head sweat! I just need it out of my face."

Ron laughed, "I like your hair no matter what the weather does to it."

"There was sweat on my books!"

Ron cringed, yes that would make Hermione a bit mad.

Hermione sat down, her bushy hair pulled back in a braid and a cloth band wrapped around her head at her hairline. Hermione's face was quite red.

"Australia not agreeing with you?"

Her expression grew more irritated, much to Ron's amusement. Hermione was easy to irritate with silly, obvious comments if the timing was right.

"I'll be glad to go home, I'll say that much. I should have sent them to Canada."

"You said your dad always wanted to go to Australia though," Ron pointed out helpfully, "Your mum was just scared of all the deadly animals."

Ron thought Hermione's parents were hilarious.

"Those huntsman spiders are huge!"

"No! No! I don't want to hear about that!"

Hermione grinned.

Great, his girlfriend was a closet sadist.

"So, how are classes going? Is the professor still fixated on ritual murders?"

"Yeah, in fact, you need to sit one of these classes to understand how disturbing it is. I can't explain it very well. I still think Lowell's a nutter."

Hermione pulled open a drawer at the desk she was sitting at and disappeared from sight for about a minute while she continued to talk to Ron. "I actually found a collection of his essays in a book at the wizarding library here, they're quite brilliant and I do think you should give them a read."

She popped back into view and held a rather thin tome up so Ron could read the title.

"Back up a smidge, Hermione, I can't read all of it."

 _Magical Power and Potential- Why the Concept of Pureblood Superiority is Stupid._

Ron's mouth fell open, "When was this published?"

Hermione winced, "The mid-seventies."

"He's clearly been insane for a long time. I'm surprised You-Know-Who didn't kill him." Ron leaned back in his chair and stretched before making himself comfortable again. "So what is it about?"

"Well, he talks a lot about how magical classification as good or evil is a human invention and it is all about intention; even supposed _good_ magic can be used for dark purposes." Hermione opened the book to the table to contents to check something, "Though, unsurprisingly, the longest essay in here is about how Muggle-borns and half-bloods have more potential to be stronger magically due to different cultural influences potentially making them more creative and a lack of pureblood inbreeding making their magic stronger and their minds more stable."

Ron chuckled at that.

"It's a brilliant piece of satire to poke fun at the Death Eaters attitude. I imagine he went deep into hiding after this was published. I haven't found any other essay collections published after this from him."

"I'll check the Ministry library that book and see if he published anything else when I get a chance, okay? I think he and the Chief Librarian used to date or something so I can see if they have anything for when you get back."

Hermione perked up, "Oh, thank you Ron!"

Ron smiled, "Dinner when you get back?"

"I'll see you in two weeks."

As the mirror dulled and showed only his own reflection Ron could not help but give himself a smug smile. "I'm such a good boyfriend."

Now it was off another endless day at the Ministry where Ron would find strange quiet places to study. To his credit, he was almost done with the textbooks Kingsley had given him. He thought he was doing pretty well.

Anything suspicious that Kingsley had asked him to look out for seemed far from reality.

* * *

Ron, like most normal people, always had a dislike of things hitting him in the face. Especially when he was trying to sneak some midmorning pumpkin juice in the Ministry library without the chief librarian finding him.

Food was not allowed in here for some reason.

Ron peeled the memo off his forehead and unfolded it slowly to properly express his rage.

 _Ron,_

 _Got a lead on something interesting. Can you head down the Ministry archives? I'm trying to get a list together of people we may have to call for the war trials together. I need a copy of the sign in sheet for the last year to cross check some information._

 _Thanks,_

 _Reeve_

Ron wished Reeve a short trip into one of the closets where the dangerous confiscated items were held before standing up. It was a chance to stretch his legs and the librarians were, from what Ron understood, trying to get into the closet where they had stored the controversial materials during the war so those items could be put back out for the public. It was just Madam Higgins at the desk and she was busy with other things.

Such as healing the junior staff who ran afoul one of the protective curses and then sending them right back in to continue doing battle with whatever other magic was in there, while saying it was part of their training.

It had been two hours and Madam Higgins was talking about how they might need a curse-breaker, adding that she may have laid those spells too strongly.

It seemed like a bad time to bring up bring up the books written by an ex-boyfriend.

Ron snuck out of the library quietly while one of the junior librarians accidently set her robes on fire.

He had to ask three different people where the archives were before ending up on the floor where the old courtrooms were at the very bottom of the Ministry. The walls were made of stone and it was very cold. He felt his teeth start to chatter loudly as he turned down a couple of short corridors to a wooden door with a warm light peering out from underneath the crack in the bottom.

Ron opened the door and was greeted by sudden warmth that stopped his teeth from chattering and he closed the door quickly behind him, breathed in that warm air and looked around the room.

The room was carpeted in a vibrant burgundy and there were doors that lead to the other offices or into the archives themselves. In this room there was only a secretary.

Ron walked over and coughed to get her to look up from her book.

Her first name was the only thing visible on her nameplate; her last name was hidden behind a stack of papers and books.

"Miss…" She had an unusual name that Ron was struggling a bit to make sure he pronounced correctly.

"Sahirah is fine," the woman cut in quickly as she put down her book and stood to shake Ron's hand. "I'm the records secretary.

Sahirah was a tall, pretty woman with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail with a few loose strands that fell into her face. Her figure was tall and willowy and brought her nose even with Ron's chin where her glasses rested on the edge of her nose.

"Ron Weasley, I was wondering if I could see the sign-in sheet for your department."

"Which one?" Sahirah sat back down at her desk and pulled out a clipboard full of papers. "The archives hold a lot of separate files and depending on what people are looking for is where they sign and what room I send them too."

Ron paused and reached out for the sign-in clipboard and flipped though it. The list only went back a month because nobody really wanted or needed to look though old paperwork on a regular basis.

It seemed to be the same people coming in to have a look at the archives.

"Where do you keep the old listings?"

"To look at the files? In the new memory room because we have nowhere else to store it right now." Sahirah raised an eyebrow. "Why do you need to know?"

"I'm looking for some information."

Sahirah's eyes narrowed. Ron thought it made her look rather feline. "Give me something specific and I'll help you out."

A panther. She looked like a panther.

"The sign in sheet for the entire last year."

She leaned back in her chair and played with the brooch on her high collar. "What for?"

Ron paused, "I'm from the Auror Department, we're investigating something."

Sahirah straightened and stood up and walked around her desk, a light of excitement in her eyes. "A mystery? I love mysteries! My job bores me to tears!"

Her wand was in her hand in an instant and motioned Ron to follow her down through a door. Ron followed and the door opened and Sahirah took off at a brisk walk down the stairs, her high heels clicking madly on the floor as the lights on the stairwell lit from either the noise of her shoes or from the motion of the two of them walking down the stairs.

She took him down another turn and the door swung open with a word from Sahirah allowing them to step into a room with a domed ceiling full of cabinets and shelves. The cabinets were plain and made of wood. The shelves were what caught Ron's attention first, each shelf held vials that floated and twisted with long shimmery strands of silver light inside of each pristine glass container. Some of the containers contained many of the glowing silver strands. Some of the strands were knotted together and struggling to come apart.

"We're going to move the files out and make this the official memory room in a year or two, so sorry about the mess. There is another cabinet down row C, next to the interview rooms. I'll check this one and meet you down there in a few minutes."

Sahirah immediately got down into the cabinet to start pulling out records of who was in the archive and when.

Ron moved closer for a better look at the shelves and looked at them carefully as he walked down the row while the scars on his arms from the Department of Mysteries battle tingled uncomfortably as if to remind him not to touch the weird shit he found in the Ministry. Though his hand still moved to wipe the light dust off a plaque under one of the orbs to see what it said.

 _K. Cole – October 1997_

"They're memories." A voice behind him said quietly causing Ron to jump. "Sorry, you just looked like you were wondering about it."

Audrey had a soft voice naturally, but here she was whispering the way one would in a library. She had focused intently on the label beneath the vial and let her eyes linger on the name before biting her lip, stepping back and clutching her books tighter to her chest.

Ron got a quick look at one of the titles, _Magic Seals of the Ancient World._

"Why are there memories down here?"

Audrey seemed to shrink and pointed at the Cole memory vial. "These are all from the war. Minister Shacklebolt wanted records from the survivors and the people who released the Muggle-borns from Azkaban." She moved so her back was facing the shelf across from Ron, a movement that reminded Ron of a frightened rabbit. "He says it's so we can track the atrocities, confirm the perpetrators and not forget what happened."

Ron nodded and took another look down the row, "Do you have any memories in here?"

"No," Her voice was firm. "I've been called to testify in the war trials, but I have not been asked to store my memories here. I made it clear to Shacklebolt that I would prefer to keep those to myself."

What an odd thing to say. Kingsley would never force someone to do something they did not want to do, especially if it involved something personal. It sounded like Audrey had to put her foot down about involvement with the memory room.

Audrey seemed to note his expression and clarified her statement. "He wasn't forceful about it. If my memories go into the historical record, I need to be more… detached from it."

"Oh, Audrey, I forgot you were down here," Sahirah came strolling down the aisle, her heels clicking on the floor. "Did you find everything you needed?"

Audrey shook her head, "I'm afraid I'm still looking."

She was pale.

Sahirah tilted her head and moved a bit closer to the shorter woman. "Are you alright? I heard you took a bad hit during that whole attacking the Ministry mess, do you need me to find you a chair?"

Audrey shook her head again, and put her hand up as if to ward off anyone who got a little too close. "I'm alright, Sahirah. Really."

"Okay, just let me know if you need anything."

Audrey nodded politely and exchanged a quick glance with Ron and walked down the aisle and followed a sign that said _study room._

"She's been in here almost everyday for the past couple of weeks for one reason or another. She says she's studying. I don't know why she keeps coming down _here_ if that's what she is doing. We don't have many books down here."

If Audrey was called for the war trials, perhaps she would have to provide a memory to help show the crime. It was something Kingsley was considering implementing for major crime trials, but there was always a risk of an altered memory.

Perhaps Audrey was considering pulling out the most damning memory she had for this trial in case it was required and needed a quiet place to find it and focus on pulling it out of her head in a way that could also secure her privacy by not revealing to much else about what happened before or after. According to Hermione, pulling out memories and altering them was a tricky business.

The place was very quiet, Ron noticed, Hermione would probably come and study down here too. Granted, there were not enough books to entice her down here to begin with at any rate.

A light glowed on Sahirah's bracelet, "Oh, I have to go back up to the office. Someone wants to look at the old essays about magical theory." She turned on her heel so quickly Ron was astounded she did not fall over. Sahirah pointed down the corridor. "You'll find a pensieve down that way if you want to view some of the memories in here." She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. "These are the sections where we keep some of our filing records, you may find what you are looking for in one of those." There was a clicking noise as she started towards the exit.

"Thanks Sahirah!"

"Call me if you need me!"

Sahirah somehow ran at a mad pace towards the staircase without falling over and as the clicking of her shoes disappeared from Ron's hearing he turned and looked at the seemingly endless aisles of shelves before him. He examined the list carefully.

"Okay, how would Hermione start looking for information?" He looked around again, "There are no books here. Where would she start on the list?"

Probably alphabetical.

She was predictable like that.

Only, looking at the list, Sahirah had scrawled it down from memory so everything was out of order. Ron was going to have to rewrite this for his sanity so he would not miss anything while he was looking and it would save him a little bit of time.

He pulled the blank book Kingsley had given him out of his bag and sat on the floor to rewrite the information in such a way that he could work through the steps of finding the information in an organized way. There were a lot of places to look.

Hermione really needed to hurry back from Australia.

* * *

An hour later, Ron eventually found the record he was looking for and realized that it was really a load of nothing. It was the same ten people who came down on a regular basis to look at different parts of the archives. He copied the list with a spell and put the copy in his bag until he could give it to Reeve.

He was quite happy to leave the memory room.

It gave him the creeps.

Besides, he had to go see if he could find those books for Hermione. Though with the chaos in the library, he may just go after his afternoon lesson with Lowell.

As he came back out into the office a clock chimed for lunch, he waved goodbye to Sahirah who was packing up some things and stepped back out into the chilly corridor as his chattering teeth returned as he walked quickly to the lift. He could take a longer break from studying to go practice some of the spells in his books.

Ron stepped onto the elevator and rubbed his arms to generate some warmth. He was learning a lot. Auror training was much different from school, he was actually interested in the subject and was not just showing up to class for a grade. There were real world applications to what he was studying. It felt useful.

He felt useful.

It was a great feeling.

The lift stopped on the second floor with a sudden jerky motion that almost knocked the occupants of the lift to the floor. Ron stepped off quickly and made for his dad's office where he had put his lunch earlier that morning. He did not care to see Percy in the lunchroom. It might involve a really awkward conversation that Ron was not in the mood to have.

His dad was at a lunch meeting with Shacklebolt, Ron popped his head into the office and summoned his lunchbox and walked towards the classroom. He was going to eat outside the classroom door. He wanted a good seat in the back so he did not have to look at the pictures Lowell put out in to much detail.

Poor Fitz had a front row seat yesterday and threw up.

Ron made himself comfortable on the floor and started eating quickly. He realized it was the best way to get through the lesson. It would be a relief to switch professors in a couple of weeks. He heard the interrogation class was fun.

Between bites he would pull out his wand and point it at the empty vase across from him and practice some of the spells in the back of his strategy textbook. One was a spell of durability, a layer of magical protection on an object. It seemed the easiest one to practice with on a vase with the others being tracking spells that Ron might need to find other ways to practice, though tracking spells were difficult and easily manipulated by outside forces.

He flung the vase up and tried to chip it on the wall when a sudden blur of peacock blue robes dashed in front of him, broke his concentration and caused him to break the vase on the floor below.

Lowell's classroom door swung open, almost hit him, and closed with a click just as quickly.

"Merlin's pants!" Ron repaired the vase and leaned back against the wall, propped his bag on closer to the door as a form of protection and decided to try and take a short nap.

Until the sound of conversation came from the muffled classroom door caught his attention.

"Audrey, this is astounding!" The voice was muffled to the point it sounded like someone was talking into a pillow.

Ron stopped trying to sleep against the wall and pulled an extendable ear out of his bag. The ear moved to the door and Ron could now hear the conversation as clearly as if it was happening right in front of him.

"You like them? I've been working on this for the past couple of weeks. It passes the time when the Minister is in meetings."

"Not many wizards can create spells, especially ones that work. Tracking spells are notoriously difficult."

Ron paused, Lowell sounded pleased. Not a tone he used in front of the Auror trainees. That particular tone toed a line between disappointment and sarcasm.

"And you, you brilliant thing, actually created one! Does it actually work?"

"How do you think I'm getting you home by midnight?"

They both laughed and Ron heard the rustling of pages being turned in a book.

"I need something personal of the person I am tracking, and it doesn't last long, but it does work."

"A more powerful focus then? Any ideas?"

There was a sound of shuffling paper, like it was being moved about on a desk.

"A few, but they're kind of gory and I'll try them last."

"I won't press for details then. Just let me know when you figured it out."

"I have a few other ideas too, in the same vein."

There was a moment of silence.

Ron was quite intrigued.

"Audrey, be careful. Messing around with new, powerful magic has gotten a lot of ambitious young researchers killed."

"I know, I'll be careful."

It was quiet again. Just the sound of flipping pages and Ron felt his eyelids grow heavy.

"How have you been feeling after the… incident?"

There was an aggravated sigh, "Fine, except for this."

They stopped talking for almost a minute and Ron leaned closer to the door.

"Is this the hand you used to seal the book? It looks fresh, like it happened the other day."

Ron's eyes flew open. Seal? What does that mean?

He remembered the book she had been holding earlier in the archives.

"Yes, it's not healing like a normal wound. I think it might be cursed but it's not magically afflicted in any way I can tell."

"Did you show the healers when you were in Saint Mungo's?"

"Yes, this is as far as they got. It wouldn't heal anymore."

 _The hell?_

"I can't help you Aud, I'm absolute shit at healing spells," There was a deep chuckle, "It's a _terrible_ war scar too, I mean, it looks like paper cut."

Audrey's laughed, it sounded momentarily untroubled, "I'm disappointed too. I'll let you finish getting ready for class in peace."

Ron struggled to put away the extendable ear as a rattle on the doorknob announced Audrey's exit.

"Aud, one more thing."

Ron pulled the ear back out.

"The head of security was looking for you earlier. He said you were seen heading towards the Department of Mysteries."

"What do you mean? I've been with the Minister and down in the archives by the old courtrooms most of the morning. I haven't even been near the Department of Mysteries."

Septimus made a low, thoughtful noise. "I just thought I'd ask. Dawson seemed concerned and a bit miffed you appeared to have left your post before your shift was over."

Ron could hear her fingers drumming thoughtfully on the door.

How could someone be in two places at once?

"Audrey, I'll help you figure this stuff out. We'll go over everything after work, okay?"

Ron finally shoved the extendable ear under one of his textbooks.

"Absolutely, I'll see you then, Septimus."

The door flew open and Ron quickly pretended to be asleep against the wall while the door hit his strategically placed bag. He imitated quiet snores for a better effect as Audrey stepped over his legs to walk quickly and quietly through the corridor.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ This chapter and the next one were originally one chapter I split them when I hit 7k-ish. It's the same day, but radically different times. It seemed a good place to divide it. Plus there is a lot of stuff going on.

Audrey's a pretty gifted witch through necessity and natural talent, though that has it own set of problems. Messing around with powerful magic you don't entirely understand can get one hurt or killed. Audrey might be dealing with the ramifications of her choices in AFtGP for years to come and may be beginning to realize it herself.

There is a difference between studying for school as a requirement and schooling for something that you enjoy. Something to think about.

I have a large chunk of the last chapter finished and a short epilogue outlined. Next chapter should be up early next week.


	4. Redwood

**Redwood**

Theme: Luck and daring exploits

 _July 24th, 1998_

After a long day of reading, studying and possibly spying on the crazy Ministry librarians while trying to track down the book Hermione had recommended him that morning. Ron had been disappointed to find that it was already checked out and the rest of Lowell's books were still in the librarians' storage closet where they hide controversial materials during the war and had spent the morning trying to break into as a combination of retrieval and training exercise. Hermione would have to come and request them herself after getting a card when she came home.

Ron was quite glad for a bit of peace and quiet. The Burrow was quiet, but it was a depressed kind of quiet, Ron was seeking a different kind of silence. Diagon Alley was pretty quiet at night, for the most part; it was a bit disconcerting to be honest. The long shadows seemed to reach out to grab the ankles of the unsuspecting passersby and rowdy songs were being sung with relish at the local pubs.

George had snuck out to go on a pub crawl, something that had been happening almost every night since they had buried Fred. Percy was George's usual retriever for these nightly adventures but he had moved back into his flat a few days ago. Ron suspected it was so he could start having a social life again, judging by Percy's lunch group and also to resume a form a privacy that the Weasley children did not get at the Burrow.

Percy had left a list of George's usual haunts in case there was a night he could not go look for him. This list included all of the pubs in Diagon Alley. Ron was not sure why Percy left the list if that was the case.

Through, his brother.

Percy had mentioned that the Sneezing Snitch was a particular favorite if he was in a fighting mood, plus the owner knew him and kept a tab for him.

The Sneezing Snitch was a tall, old building with what looked like a large flat on the second floor where the owner supposedly lived. It looked weather beaten and run down from the outside, the windows were smudged and cracked, adding to the aesthetic of the most violent pub in the alley, well away from the more reputable shops near the front and a very long walk to get to from the Wheeze.

The shouts from the inside caught Ron's attention. It did not sound like a brawl.

Ron opened the door a crack just to take a look and found an Enforcer standing in front of the bar with her arms crossed as she yelled back at an older man who was giving her a hard time. He took the distraction to open the door and silence the bell that would announce him and kept his head down as he made to take an empty chair by an irate portrait that seemed to be screaming at the bartender near the back of the pub.

"Fowler, you're being ridiculous."

"I don't see what the Ministry wants with our memories."

Some of the others in the bar shouted their agreement.

Ron recognized Lucia Selwyn who was sitting at a table in the back by the fireplace talking quietly to an average looking man who was reading a medical textbook and a small, round woman with wavy brown hair tied back in a bandana. Lowell, who was sleeping soundly with his head on the table despite the chaos, occupied the last chair.

"I'm trying to move on from the stuff I saw, not put it in a bottle to scare some historian a hundred years down the road!"

Lucia stood up and adjusted her glasses. "What about Selene Scoresby? I think she deserves some justice after some son of a bitch decided to make her an example by _blasting her head off in a public execution!"_

The pub grew quiet.

Ron's mouth fell open. He had heard that story on PotterWatch. Lee had left out decapitation in his description, instead focusing on her life and career as a small independent publisher.

"Her daughter deserves justice. You have the capacity to help see it done and you can't bare the _memory_ of it?" Her fist slammed down on the table, Lucia's voice trembled. "Serena Scoresby saw it too, Fowler. _You all did!_ And you were to cowed to try and save her or help the children Selene was protecting after their parents were put in Azkaban!"

"Then where the hell were you, Lucia?" Another man stood up, "Hiding out because it easier then facing what kind of power your family had gained when Muggle-borns like Audrey started going to Azkaban?"

Lucia's beautiful face contorted into something nasty that sent shivers up Ron's spine.

"I've done more for the war effort then you can possibly imagine. I fought and killed to create a better world while you sat in your house and cowered at the idea of dirtying your hands!"

Ron had never really considered the plight of rogue blood traitors from purist Death Eater families before. It was a bit beyond his realm of comprehension with his whole family wearing the blood traitor label like a badge of honor. That woman was walking around with a target on her back and wearing it with pride.

Her friends were trying to pull her back into her seat but Lucia shook them off and drew her wand.

"If you're going to throw being the scion of a family of Death Eaters in my face, _draw your wand!"_

 _"SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!"_ The Enforcer shouted from the front of the pub. Lucia and the man both sat down quickly and looked at her in shock. Ron had to assume that the Enforcer never really raised her voice at these events.

Lowell picked his head up off the table for a quick look around at the sudden loud noise before lying back down.

The Enforcer crossed her arms and her lips were curled back in a snarl. "This is a community, we're not going to tear each other to pieces over blood status or bearing witness to war crimes." She turned her eyes to Lucia, "Lucia, I thank you for speaking up, but you _do not_ get to play judge and jury over other people's choices to come forward as a witness to a crime. That's a personal choice, you do not get to make it for them or throw around insults to make it happen." Lucia's glasses grew foggy, through her face remained stoic.

"As for you, Blackwood," she turned her gaze to the older man who had folded his hands on the table and looked at her with a steady gaze. "Throwing blood status around makes you no better then a Voldemort-" there was a gasp from the crowd, "-supporter in any context, even if it's turned in the other direction!"

The Enforcer gazed at every person in the pub. "If you want to turn our community meetings into a free-for-all over our sins from the last year, then we will not have them at all. I am not going to tolerate abusing each other when we should be working together to try and rebuild our homes and our sense of community. We have problems here, yes, everywhere does, but the fact is you are all still here tells me that as bad as things were, you will not let it beat you."

The patrons looked very ashamed.

"I'll see you all next week."

There was a sudden hustle as most of the Sneezing Snitch emptied leaving only a couple of tables occupied. Ron stood up and walked over to the bar to talk to the Enforcer and the barkeep.

"That was tense, great speech."

The barkeep handed the Enforcer a glass of water that she drank quickly.

"Oh, yeah, she's impressive! That's why we're stepping out, right dear?"

She snorted into her glass and made a serious effort not to choke.

The barkeep held out his hand to Ron, "I'm Scully, barkeep and owner. You must be a Weasley."

Scully seemed like a very smart man.

Ron shook his hand firmly and grinned. "Ron Weasley, how could you tell?"

"I know George and Percy pretty well, you look a lot like the latter." Scully motioned him closer, and started wiping down glasses. "If you want to mess with him, he comes in to flirt with Audrey when he's picking up George. I think they've lined up their schedules to walk back together with their respective drunk."

"It's hilariously sad," The Enforcer chimed in.

Ron grinned, "I may have to use that at Sunday dinner with my family, see what happens. Unfortunately, I don't really know Audrey that well, Lowell teaches in my department but I don't know much about either of them."

Scully and the Enforcer exchanged a look.

"I may need something a bit more subtle to mess with Percy." Ron tried to cover. "What can you tell me about her?"

"Audrey?" Scully stopped wiping his mugs and leaned on the counter conspiratorially. "She's been living in the alley for a couple of years with that drunken lump." He pointed to the snoring lump at a table by the fireplace that was his teacher while Lucia talked quietly with the couple she was friends with. "She usually picks his sorry arse up from the pubs in the evenings. Though he came with his niece and the Townsends tonight so I think Audrey's taking the night off at the Leaky Cauldron. Bit of a shame, she probably would've taken a swing at Blackwood for saying that stuff to Lucia."

"Seriously?"

Scully laughed, and refilled the Enforcer's glass of water. "That shy disposition fools a lot of people. Audrey is one of the nicest people I've ever met, but the war left her with a mean right hook and a twitchy wand, I would not cross her." His lips pressed together tightly, seeming to see the question in Ron's eyes. "She's Muggle-born, she managed to avoid the Ministry's efforts at purification, but she's not the same person she was before she went into hiding. More burdened, traumatized. Though she's always had a spine of steel seeing as Septimus had six apprentices before Audrey and none of them met his rigorous standards." Scully paused and looked into Ron's eyes. "They're both good friends to me and wonderful people. I won't hear a word against either of them."

"Why are you really asking, Weasley?" The Enforcer asked, her hazel eyes sharp.

"I'm just curious, the way things have been lately we're doing a small background check on the new workers."

"Well, you can stop your questioning about the both of them here." Scully's tone was firm. It was the kind of thing Lowell and Heathers were on the trainees about most of the time. Sound like you are in control, even if you are not. "This is something to small for Aurors, let alone trusting a trainee with."

"How could you tell I was a trainee?" Ron sputtered.

"You walk like an Auror, but you haven't mastered the shifty look around they do when they enter a room." Scully pointed at Lowell, "I've known that man since I was in nappies. I know Auror paranoia."

Ron sighed and tried the shifty look around the room.

"You look like you're trying to hard." The Enforcer said plainly as she took another sip of water. Scully began to laugh and put his hand on top of her unoccupied one.

"My girlfriend, she's great!"

The woman smiled at Scully and held her hand out to Ron, "Bit late on the introductions on my part, I'm Celeste Cadwallader, the Enforcer stationed in Diagon Alley."

Ron shook it firmly.

"Nice to meet you."

Dating the local Enforcer was one way to keep the Ministry out of private business matters. Letting her run community meetings in your pub was a way to keep the riffraff out of your pub once a week.

Brilliant!

Celeste stood up and stretched before leaning over the counter to kiss Scully on the cheek. "I need to go look into something, I'll be back later for our… _appointment._ "

Ron tried to will himself into a state of invisibility as his face lit up like a beacon while Scully smiled like a fool.

"She's great." Scully muttered as he leaned over the counter to watch her leave. "Fantastic person."

The door closed behind her with the tingle of a bell. Lowell woke up and propped his head on his hand so he could look at Scully with a rather malicious grin.

"So, Scully," he started slowly, the alcohol apparent in how he swayed back and forth. "Didja finally get into her knickers?"

Scully's face turned a shade of crimson so bright it matched Ron's hair.

" _You go straight to hell!"_ Scully tried to shout but it was apparent he was choking on his own embarrassment.

Lucia snorted loudly as her body shook with laughter. The Townsends quickly followed her lead with a bit more subtlety.

Ron made for the door as quickly and quietly as he was able before Lowell noticed him. He wanted to try and talk to Audrey.

The cobblestone streets were lit with magelights and lights were going out in the shop flats. Ron checked his pocket watch to find that it was almost eleven. If Audrey was awake, he had a couple of questions he wanted to ask her. He did not want her to know everything he knew, but he was hopeful that he could get some answers.

Scully said she lived at the Leaky Cauldron. That was good; he had to go through there to get to his apparation point. If he saw her on his way out he would try to make it seem casual. He noted Ollivander's was open again; the windows displayed his new hours on a piece of parchment. He smiled; glad that things were really starting to go back to normal for the start of a new school year.

Though Ron's face fell when he walked past Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. It looked abandoned, though Ron knew George stopped by once in a while to check the place, but the wounds were still too raw to open back up to the public. The most time George spent inside was when he was collecting his possessions to move back into the Burrow.

He turned his back on the building and looked at the burned out skeleton of the building across the street from the Weasley shop. Ron was sure it used to be a bookshop.

Ron turned away and could now see the Leaky Cauldron at the end of the street; it was easier to deal with what was in front of him then to get lost in thought. He fingered the deluminator in his pocket and resumed his walk.

The lights in the Leaky Cauldron were off, but the door was supposed to be unlocked for people to enter and leave the alley so Ron had no scruples about opening the door and stepping inside.

There was an eerie silence in the dark pub. The shadows stretched and seemed to reach for him as he looked around for the main exit to muggle London. Ron guessed that Audrey was already in bed as he took another sweep around the room.

Ah, there was the door!

Ron walked towards it cautiously, but a dim light out of one of the private parlors caught his attention. It was the room next to the stairs that lead up to the bedrooms. Ron walked over and peered through a crack in the door. There was nobody inside. Being kind of nosy, Ron slowly opened the door and stepped inside. If he got caught, he could always say he was looking for the exit.

 _WHAM_

There was a terrible ringing in his head as he hit the floor. He could hear someone breathing heavily with exertion behind him before he turned to look his assailant in the face.

 _"Oh bloody hell!"_

Audrey said a word he would _never_ say in front of his mother as she held the thick book aloft ready to hit him again with _A Complete Dictionary of Runes and Meanings_ , unless she decided to change her mind and draw her wand.

Her stance slowly eased and her arms came down to her sides, "I thought you were someone else," she breathed, her voice soft and edged with fear.

" _Who_ did you think I was?"

"Someone a little smarter."

Was his dad sure they were not related? Those sarcastic quips had to be a genetic quirk.

Audrey was quiet for a moment, "Why are you here?"

Ron thought quickly, "I'm looking for George."

Audrey raised an eyebrow, "Percy took him back to your mother's place twenty minutes ago. _Try again_."

She looked into his eyes and Ron instinctively broke contact, feeling something at the edge of his mind that he could not place. He just knew it would be a bad idea to make eye contact with this woman.

"Information," if she were going try to dig around in his head, it would be on his terms. "I heard the MFR is holding a lot of meetings here."

"Old news, they've been here for months."

Ron blinked, the ringing in his head was beginning to subside.

Audrey clutched the book to her chest and heaved a tired sigh, "I'm sorry I hit you, you scared me. You can look at me, I'm not going to try and read your mind again." She paused, "I'm not very good at it anyway."

Ron got to his feet wearily and got a better look at Audrey when she stepped past him and into the well lit room. She looked completely exhausted, even her housecoat was ill fitting for such a slight woman and her hair was a mess that corresponded with the dark shadows under her eyes. This was someone who clearly did not live a comfortable life and was not sleeping very well.

And wore ragged pink bunny slippers that seemed to be held together by magic.

"Scully said there was some man asking about me at his pub tonight. Was that you?"

Ron blinked and tried to formulate a response.

"Why?"

Ron added _viciously intelligent_ to his list of descriptors.

"How did you-"

She pointed at the fireplace she had been sitting in front of, "Floo call."

Ron was starting to think she had left the door cracked on purpose after Scully told her about him. Did he want to be honest with her? No, he did not want to be honest with someone who could potentially be much more then they appeared.

"Muggle-borns for Reformation, I heard they are trying to get a foothold in the Ministry. I just wanted to investigate, see if I could find out anything."

Audrey snorted, "Suspecting all Muggle-borns of joining the MFR? How _purist_ of you."

Shit. Ron really had to work on his cover stories.

"N-no! That's not it at all! I heard you know almost everything that happens in Diagon Alley."

"Then you could have found me at work in the morning instead of in the middle of the night."

She turned on her heel and went back to the chair by the fireplace where she had probably been reading before setting the trap for him. Ron was sure that this was the most he had ever heard her speak to someone who was not in her inner circle.

If she was in a talkative mood, perhaps he could get some answers. He got up and took the other armchair on the other side of the small table and stared into the fireplace. Audrey flipped through her book until she found where she had left off before hitting him with it.

And ignored him.

Okay, the ice needed to be broken. What would be a good topic? Lowell was clearly mad as a hatter, why not start with that?

"So, how is Lowell doing?"

"You saw him in class this morning, and probably at the Sneezing Snitch."

"Yeah, well, I thought he looked a bit peaky. I don't think it was the murder of the day either."

"Oh, that stuff doesn't bother him. He's says he's seen worse."

Merlin's saggy left-!

"If it scares you, don't let it. He's trying to weed out the ones without the stomach for the harder edge of the job."

"You had to sit those lectures too?"

"No."

Lucky woman.

She marked her spot in the book, setting it in the small bag next to her chair and pulled out a quill and some parchment with a diagram on it with a flick of her wand. Ron noted another book on the small table; this one also quite thick but he had other concerns then her reading materials.

Ron stayed where he was, trying to figure out the best way to either take Audrey off his suspect list or find hard facts to keep her on it. She did not seem to care that he was still in her work area. In fact, it appeared she had quite forgotten he was there, perhaps not really viewing him as a threat or immediate problem. She levitated an inkbottle within reach of her quill as she scanned the diagram.

It may have been bad timing to say anything, but Ron was never known for that.

"What are you looking at?"

Audrey yelped and lost focus on the inkbottle that suddenly fell into her lap all over her paperwork.

" _Morgana's knickers!"_

Ron jumped up, "I'm really sorry! Let me help-"

Audrey pulled the spilled ink off her parchment with a sharp wave of her hand that got the ink into the air around her outstretched hand and sent it flying into the now upright inkbottle at her feet.

Wandless magic?

She repeated the gesture with the ink that had spilled onto her housecoat before leaning back in her chair and turning her head to stare at Ron as if to tell him he now had her undivided attention.

"If you want to interrogate me, Weasley. Go right ahead."

Ron sat back down in the empty chair very carefully. As he sat down he noted the title of the book on the table. _Simulacrum: A Guide to Creation and Use._

He wanted to say something, but for some reason his mind was blank and unfocused.

Audrey's eyes were grey with the barest tinge of blue. They were pretty, but made unnerving in their single-minded focus on his person, made more so by the shadows cast from the dying fire.

"I need to ask if you attended any meetings recently, I didn't want to embarrass you at work."

Audrey still looked as if she did not believe him. "I attended the first MFR meeting in Diagon Alley two months ago. A friend of mine was providing food at their leader Silvern's request and I went to see what it was all about. If Silvern wasn't Muggle-born, I'd have sworn he was a Death Eater, so I left early."

"Your friend's name?"

"Russell Bennett."

"Where can I find him?"

Audrey paused and took a rather emotionless expression, "Wizardhead graveyard, plot three hundred and ninety-four."

"Okay," Ron nodded, the directness was awkward, and it was probably on purpose to make him feel bad about digging into her personal life.

"I also joined the Diagon Watch after the war ended because we weren't getting any help from the Ministry with our high crime rates." Her voice was soft, but laced with disgust. "Which is why Russell's…"

 _Vigilante_ was another word he scrawled own on his mental list.

"Is that all? Or do you have anymore asinine questions about my life."

Ron felt his temper rise, "Yes, I do. What is it you do for Lowell?"

Audrey's lips pressed together into a thin line, "I'm his shop assistant."

"Everyone else calls you his apprentice."

She shrugged, her face blank. "I do that to, but it doesn't pay much."

"What does that mean?"

"Why do you care?"

"What is he teaching you?"

"That's classified."

"How did you get the scar on your hand?"

Audrey recoiled and looked like the woman Scully had described at the pub. Twitchy and dangerous. Her eyes narrowed and resembled chips of midwinter ice; her hand went to the bag on the other side of the chair where he could not see it as she continued to stare at him. That made him nervous and he jumped to his feet. Before he could remove his wand from his holster, Audrey's wand was already in her hand.

Surprisingly, Audrey wasn't pointing it at him; she just fiddled it around in her hands while she stared at him as if she was contemplating the best way to send him home in several matchboxes.

"I don't like nosy little spies."

Ron's breath caught in his throat as he finally got his wand in his hand. The back of her hands were covered in a thin sheen of ice. He knew he had made better choices then the ones he made tonight.

Audrey sighed, her breath was visible despite the heat from the dying fire. "In my line of work, I deal with a lot of nosy little spies. People who want things, secrets, weaknesses, powerful magic. I make them forget what they have found when I catch them."

She seemed contemplative.

"The last one I got killed himself rather then have me go through his head, and what he found wasn't even a real secret."

Audrey turned her hand out to show Ron the scar on her palm.

Paper cut was a really poor description. From the fleshy base of her thumb to the underside of her pinky was a violently red cut that looked barely healed. From the cut there were dull, thin spider webs that extended outward to the rest of her palm, a couple seemed to be moving to the back of her hand. Ron thought it was a horrid, unnatural scar.

"I got this saving your brother and everyone else in that godforsaken Ministry of yours. I'll let you draw your conclusions on whether or not you trust me from that."

Ron was quiet.

"Now," she returned to fiddling with her wand, "if you want to take me in for questioning, I will fight you and win."

Ron's mind whirred.

Audrey rose to her feet and picked up her bag and adjusted the strap on her shoulder. "I think you've pried enough for one night and I have more important things to do then help you play Auror." Audrey walked silently towards the parlor door. "Have a good night, Ron." She closed the door behind her.

Ron exhaled slowly, the back of his neck warm with his repressed temper as she disappeared to her bedroom. He got to his feet and slipped out into muggle London to go to the apparation point in an alley down the street. All he had gotten from Audrey were half-truths and she was quite defensive.

Affiliating his problems with chess helped him think.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. If he thought about it like chess, Audrey was a rook. Always protecting other pieces like an immovable wall.

Though he was running into another problem. He was not sure if he knew where all the other pieces were on the board, or even who they could be. This felt bigger then just a mysterious woman; there were too many things that did not add up yet.

Perhaps it was time to go see Kingsley for something other then reports on his studies.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _The post-war wizarding world in my opinion is a really interesting time period. I think as people felt safer, a lot of war crimes started coming to light and Kingsley wanted to try and keep a record from witnesses so nothing would be forgotten. A public record of war trial evidence and for historical purposes. Ron's getting a much fuller picture of life under Voldemort instead of hearing reports through the radio, the public is still incredibly mistrustful and scared to come forward for a lot of different reasons. I have extensive headcannons._

 _Audrey is a complicated person, burdened, secretive and will fight tooth and nail to preserve those secrets. Apprenticeship in magical research is basically the Master's program from hell, seven years of study and service under an accredited teacher, by nature researchers are very secretive and Septimus is a rather... difficult man to work under. Audrey's on her second year, the previous six quit under mysterious circumstances within six months._

 _In my universe, Lucy is named (diminutively) after Lucia Selwyn. For several good reasons._

 _Happy Holidays everyone!_


	5. Silver Lime

_**Silver Lime**_

Theme: _Vision_

 _July 27th, 1998_

"If you're looking for Audrey, she's not here." Lucia snarled from the desk outside of the Minister's Support Staff office.

Ron peered over at the closed door to the Minister's support staff office.

"Yeah, I heard about your little talk." She kept her voice low and threatening. She stood up and adjusted her glasses but kept the desk between them. "You can't go running to Shacklebolt either, he's in a meeting somewhere else."

Lucia finally stepped out from behind the desk and walked over to Ron. Her green eyes glittered with magnified ill intent behind her glasses as she looked up at him. The top of her head just reached the bottom of his chin.

Ron tried to stutter something. He was not sure what.

"Don't bother to explain anything to me, _I don't care_." Lucia stuck her finger in his chest and moved him back a step. "You're very lucky it wasn't me you went after. Audrey's a much nicer person then me, because I would have just blown out what few brains you got and sent what was left of you home in a matchbox to your mother."

What the hell!

"I don't have a problem going to Azkaban if anything like that happens again." Lucia shoved him into the lift and Ron tumbled to the floor, slamming his head on the back of the lift wall as he did so. "Have I made myself clear?" She then leaned in and pressed the lift's atrium button and Ron only got one last glimpse of her murderous gaze before the lift doors closed and began their descent.

Ron filed the Minister's floor to no longer be a safe place and started cataloging new places to meet up with Shacklebolt when needed.

He stood up and hit the lift button to take him down to the library instead. Ron would go there and wait for Harry, who had returned in time for dinner the previous night, much to Ginny's elation. The library would be as good a place as any to lay low and make a plan to find Shacklebolt and tell him his guards might be lunatics.

The door opened and closed on the Atrium. It was still quite empty.

Ron let his thoughts drift to Hermione who would be back in a couple of weeks. Her bushy hair, brilliant mind, his plans to take her out for dinner and possibly bicker on the walk home.

He did not intend to end up face to face with a lunatic when he stepped off the lift.

Merlin's beard, Audrey still looked like she wanted to kill him.

She breezed past him, holding a stack of books up to her chin.

Ron slipped off after her, keeping an eye on her location as she weaved between the bookshelves until she found Lowell. Ron moved into the aisle next to them and watched through a gap in the bookshelf.

His eyes followed Lowell, who would stop trying to cross to the study area and hide behind the bookshelf every time the chief librarian Madam Higgins turned in his direction. He stopped so quickly; Audrey bumped into him and nearly dropped her books onto the floor.

"You're being ridiculous!" Audrey whispered as Lowell peered through a gap in the books to double-check her location.

"No, I'm not." He hissed as he looked at the bindings of some of the books he was hiding behind in an effort to look casual.

"It was forty years ago!"

"I left her at the alter, women scorned don't forget."

"I'm sure she forgave you," Audrey's arms shook with the effort of holding onto her books, the corners of her mouth twitched. "After she read you the riot act in the hospital."

"Remember that ex-boyfriend of yours?"

"You swore never to bring that up again!"

Ron started pretending to look for a book before noticing he was in the cooking section.

Lowell crept across the aisle; Ron could see Audrey roll her eyes as she walked after him.

There was the distinctive creak of the lift doors opening and an Auror walked over to Lowell. The teacher tried to hobble out of Madam Higgins line of sight but this Auror, who it took Ron a moment to recognize as Auror McGrew, one of the secondary squad leaders, blocked off Lowell's method of escape.

Terrible luck

"Ah, Lowell," McGrew started, his voice was deep and rumbling. "Shacklebolt says you need help with a dueling class."

"That's next week, most of them are veterans from the final battle at Hogwarts and don't need to much work. Besides, I already have all the help I need." He patted the top of Audrey's head. She looked less then pleased with the action.

McGrew grinned, "That's adorable, but Shacklebolt is sending me to help you with that. As the poet Ulysses Umbar said, 'War is pain, and profane."

Lowell looked deeply confused as McGrew started quoting a couple of other war based lines from this supposed poet while Madam Higgins grinned maliciously from her desk.

Audrey looked back at the old woman, who put a finger to her lips and ducked down behind her desk. She turned back to McGrew with vacant eyes and promptly turned a dull shade of pink and walked towards the lift.

Lowell was nodding at McGrew as his mouth opened slightly as his eyes followed Audrey's departure. He looked like he was thinking about hanging himself from the rafters to try and escape that conversation.

Ron peered around the bookshelf and barely managed to suppress a groan.

Percy was holding some of Audrey's books for her while they talked quietly about something that Ron could not quite make out, but when the other was talking the other was nodding their head in agreement. Percy had hunched over a bit to better hear what Audrey was saying.

Audrey's nefarious plan clearly had the steps of killing Ron for being nosy, then shagging his brother (ew), followed by going to his parents for dinner. It was the steps before and after that that left Ron confused. And those three steps might not be in order.

He decided to go wait for Harry on the other side of the library. Ron felt like he had seen far too much in the last five minutes.

Finding an unoccupied table in this place was like finding a unicorn, extremely difficult. Wait, there was Reeve. Ron could always count on him to have a table. He could be like a dog with a bone about things but he was an efficient information broker and table snatcher.

Ron sat down across from Reeve and propped his feet up to get comfortable while he waited on Harry.

"Not so much as a by your leave?" Reeve quipped as he closed the files he was looking through.

"You would've dragged me over anyway."

"True." Reeve ran his fingers through his hair and stood up. "Because I need to use the loo and need someone to watch my stuff. I'll be right back." Reeve stood up and walked quickly towards the back of the library.

Ron reached over and borrowed the _Daily Prophet_ that Reeve had left next to his files and skimmed the front-page stories.

"What's going on this week?"

Ron jumped and reached for his wand only to find Harry pulling out a chair next to him.

"Nothing much. Kingsley's in the paper."

He passed the paper to Harry for him to read.

"He hates political shows like this."

"Better him then us, right?"

Reeve dropped down in his seat, "According to the Prophet, Shacklebolt's in a big meeting with the Wizarding Coalition of Europe this morning. It's just the Aurors acting as his bodyguards today." Reeve gave Ron a knowing look. "Which would be a good opportunity for certain people to go find whatever it is their looking for."

Harry sighed, "Reeve, I think you're too fixated on this."

"Look, I think they are both up to something. Lowell has not worked for the Ministry in decades, why is he taking this job now? He's noted for anti-ministry sentiment." He pulled a piece of paperwork out of one of the files he had left on the table and gave it to Harry. "He wrote a criticism pieces a few years ago calling the ministry out on an unsolved cold case and said that as long as it doesn't line pockets, some perpetrators don't get arrested. He wants something and maybe he is the real mastermind of that pair, Audrey's more like his right hand. She can go places that he can't because of her position in her department. I bet he has taught her everything he knows."

Ron could not argue with that last sentence. Audrey was clearly a powerful witch who Lowell clearly doted on.

"You're sure about this?"

"Yes!" Ron glanced around the library to take note of where the librarians were. Madam Higgins scared him almost as badly as his mum. "We catch her nosing about we might catch the old man too."

Reeve pulled a couple of files out of his bag. "You two should read these so you know what you're up against. They may be biased, some of the notes in here are from when this place was run by You-Know-Who."

Ron opened the file Reeve gave him out of sheer curiosity and was greeted with a picture of a meek looking girl with shoulder length mousey brown hair in a Ravenclaw scarf who was trying not to make eye contact while playing with the ends of her scarf, seeming to try and hide behind it.

 _Causey, Audrey Evelyn_

 _Graduate of Ravenclaw house class of 1997 with honors. Obtained twelve Outstanding O.W.L.s. and seven Outstanding N.E.W.T.s._

Overqualified for security for sure. Ron then double-checked her graduation date; he thought she was older.

Her mother, Evelyn, had died in childbirth; her father Aran Causey was working in London as a private investigator and was estranged from his daughter and the rest of his family for at least seventeen years. With her father out of the picture, her grandparents Saoirse and Harlan Causey raised her until they both died about four years ago.

Recordings and sightings of Audrey in the muggle world ceased after that.

Ron felt he had learned enough and moved onto her schooling, taking a moment to be thoroughly disturbed at how through a record the Ministry had on the persecuted Muggle-borns. Ron was not sure anyone would want this much information in a government file.

 _Pursuing a career in Magical Research through a non-Ministry agency or Magical Research Society affiliated party with the full support of Head of House Filius Flitwick (See enclosed recommendation letters and personal notations from career meeting)._

Ron noted the career notes from the charms professor described her as a quiet girl who was an exceptionally gifted witch who still seemed undecided as to her future career. Flitwick also noted that Audrey seemed to possess a near hindering shyness, was very withdrawn and had a problem letting new people into her life.

That was understandable.

Ron flipped it to her file for 1997. Her court date for the faux charge of the theft of magical power was listed as August seventh. A lot of fresh Hogwarts graduates were rounded up after right after Voldemort's takeover. They were easy to find and capture under threats and a need to comply with the new laws to protect their muggle families.

Audrey had no family left to threaten and disappeared probably as soon as the court summons arrived.

Ron noted a notation made by Albert Runcorn that the supposed home and office of Aran Causey were made unplottable and seemed to be protected from wizards by powerful protection charms. His agents seemed to be forgetting the people they were looking for and would begin to bark like dogs if they were in the area to long searching for them.

By the end of the year she was wanted by the Ministry for several other offenses, including treason, direct disobedience to the law, inciting a riot, resisting arrest, assaulting the Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission and lastly, illegal broomstick enchantment.

Well, she had a busy few months.

He was curious as to how she had gotten that close to Umbridge though.

Ron skimmed to the last section about danger level and noted affiliates.

 _ **Classification:**_ _Highly Dangerous. Approach with caution. Arrested with Townsend the night of the twenty-second of April 1998. Escaped from trial on the twenty-fifth of April 1998._

 _ **Kill on sight.**_

 _ **Noted Affiliates:**_ _Lowell, Septimus- Pureblood, retired Auror (see file PSS-SPL) Causey's mentor in magical research and her landlord. Highly Dangerous. Arrested with Causey and Townsend the night of the twenty-second of April 1998. Escaped from trial on the twenty-fifth of April 1998, surrendered when his associates escaped the Ministry and was then sentenced to life in Azkaban._

 _Selwyn, Lucia- Pureblood, low-level threat. Menace to society at large. Arrested with Causey and Townsend the night of the twenty-second of April 1998. Escaped from trial on the twenty-fifth of April 1998._

 _ **Capture alive.**_

Lucia only had a capture order even though she had escaped the trial as well. Ron took in that bit of information. A young, beautiful pureblood witch from a powerful family, they may have wanted her to come around to their way of thinking through a conversion camp or something of that nature. Ron doubted she would have done so quietly.

 _Townsend, John- Muggle-born. Ministry employee. Arrested with Causey the night of the twenty-second of April 1998. Escaped from trial on the twenty-fifth of April 1998. His wife Eleanor claims to know nothing of his whereabouts and is currently visiting family in the United States._

 _ **Kill on sight.**_

 _Garland, Adamina- Half-blood, a secretary in the Goblin Liaison Office. Eliminated the night of the twenty-second of April 1998._

 _Garland, Martin- Half-blood, Undersecretary to the Head of Enchanted Relict Confiscation Services. Eliminated the night of the twenty-second of April 1998._

 _Odell, Nolan- Pureblood- Ministry employee stationed in spell-development. Eliminated the night of the twenty-second of April 1998._

That night sounded like a bloodbath. Ron was about to flip back and go through what he had initially assumed to be boring trial transcriptions wanting to know about this escape from the trial when Reeve opened his mouth.

"That was all the information they had on him," Reeve said to Harry. "It's patchy but he was actually an Auror. I didn't actually believe him when he said that on the first day of class."

"This sounds mysterious!" A feminine voice said from behind the shelf causing Ron and Harry to jump and Reeve to back into the bookcase behind him. Ron turned so quickly he knocked the file he was reading onto the floor and scattered the papers everywhere. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." There was the clicking of heels on the floor as she stepped out from behind a bookshelf carrying several books. It was the secretary from the records office. "Oh, is that Harry Potter?"

Harry shook Sahirah's hand and they made polite small talk, to her credit, Sahirah was not the blushing, giggling type when confronted with famous wizards while Ron picked up the scattered papers and put them back in order to the best of his ability.

"So, what are you up to?"

Ron suddenly had a flash of brilliance. "Sahirah, do you want to help us solve a mystery?"

"I would love too, on one condition." Sahirah smiled and pulled out a quill and wrote down her name on a piece of parchment she had pulled out of her pocket. "You need to help me get out of the archive office. I'm bored to tears!" She set her books down on the table and gave him the parchment. "Anywhere is fine. Just put in a good word for me."

 _Sahirah A. Newsly – Clerk Extraordinaire._

She had a very elegant and loopy script.

"I'll see what I can do." Ron picked up the book, put it back in his bag and motioned for Harry and Sahirah to come closer.

Reeve's reasoning was thin, but it had to be looked into. Partially, so he would stop talking about it. Audrey seemed to be taking advantage of the clearance granted to her as a member of the Minister's support staff. Be it for power, money or revenge, it would probably be best to keep this quiet until more concrete information could be found. If this was all a misunderstanding, it could destroy her reputation and future prospects, pushing her deeper into the shadows of a recovering world.

Also, being in two places at once was concerning in and of itself, solving that mystery would be a good apology for nosing around in her private affairs.

And possibly remove him from her hit list.

"I think I have a plan."

* * *

Ron and Harry waited in the book stacks by the lift; Reeve and Sahirah had gone on ahead to get into position. This plan would work. They just needed the signal on the charmed parchment Sahirah had given them all.

If Audrey went downstairs via the staircase or the lift. They would know and be ready to follow.

In fact, she had gone up on the lift about fifteen minutes ago.

All they could do for now was wait.

Harry pointed out some of the higher ups that Williamson had been introducing him to, helping to pass the time. Ron knew some of them by reputation. Yarrow was a specialist in spell development, and the hawkish looking man talking with her was Sloan, the new head of the Floo Regulation Department who was an Enforcer until after the war. He was handling some internal investigations from his new position and had apparently run afoul Percy about a month ago for his methods.

Ron checked his parchment.

 _She's on her way down the back staircase. Ready?- F._

Ron never even saw Williamson until he was right next to them.

"Ah, Potter! Just the man I was looking for!" Williamson reached out and tossed a fatherly arm over Harry's shoulders as he tried to slip out after Ron and promptly pulled Harry with him as he walked to the other side of the room. "This is Cutter, he's just returned from an international assignment, working with the Spaniards."

"Oh, really?" Harry tried to smile and look interested while looking for an opportunity to get away.

"You're going with me to the coalition meeting, Shacklebolt thinks it'll help build our case with these alliances and agreements."

Ron's parchment began to form words.

 _You all should meet me in the Atrium before you go- S._

Ron met Harry's eyes and motioned for him to go with Williamson. He would be able to let Kingsley know there was trouble and lay the foundation to catch the remaining Death Eaters who had fled abroad.

Chess was sacrifice and long term planning.

Ron pressed the lift button and waited. It was not hard to disappear when Harry Potter was in the room.

Still deeply inconvenient for Ron.

He disliked working with people he did not know very well, and if this went wrong he would prefer to have Harry watch his back.

Ron scrawled a note on the parchment about Harry getting dragged away by Williamson and stepped into the lift.

Answers were coming.

Only, Ron was not sure if he was going to like those answers when they were revealed.

Ron stepped off the lift and looked for Sahirah as he looked around the Atrium. It was surprisingly full of foreign dignitaries, well, at closer glance, their clerks and support staff.

Sahirah stepped out from the other side of an out of order fireplace, grinned and motioned to all of the people. "This is why I want out of the archive office, I don't see anything interesting down there." A group of French support staff strolled past them seeming to be criticizing the architecture. "Or that pretty."

Ron rolled his eyes. His plan could possibly go to pieces at any moment and she was thinking about boys.

She definitely needed to get out of that office.

Sahirah sighed, "Anyway, this is a map of the Department of Mysteries I got from an old boyfriend in the Security Department. I think he was trying to impress me. I also made you this."

She held out a piece of paperwork to Ron.

"What is this?"

"A clearance form for entrance to the Department of Mysteries I forged a couple of weeks ago. Reeve's already down there and no alarms have gone off, so I assume it works."

Criminal mastermind. Figures that would be the next thing he found this week.

"Thanks, Sahirah."

Sahirah looked around and gave Ron a wink as she adjusted her glasses and handed him a wrapper from one of the Weasley shop's candies. "It's not a problem, I'll make sure no on sees you leaving, don't need to be followed by Dawson's security team. Tell me all about it when you're done. Have fun!" She strolled forward with a continuously elegant clicking of her heels on the floor. She slowed behind a large group of foreign dignitaries who were being escorted by members of the security department who has stopped to admire the new peace fountain. The new statue featured a phoenix rising from a circle of fire on a platform in the middle of fountain.

When this group of people stopped to admire it, Sahirah stopped suddenly wobbled and seemed to mutter something incoherent to one of the dignitaries and fell into a dead faint on the floor as the crowd gathered around. Ron looked at the wrapper for a Fainting Fancy and rolled his eyes. While everyone's attention was on the woman on the floor, Ron crept over to the back staircase go down to the Department of Mysteries.

* * *

AN: I'm dividing the last couple of chapters into four and an epilogue. This is a turning point. Big sections of the next three chapters are finished, just not completed.

I've always thought there was more then one way to use a Weasley product. Orchestrating a meet cute could be one of them.


	6. Rowan

**_Rowan_**

Theme: _Protection and dueling ability_

 _July 27th, 1998_

Ron tried to retrace his steps up to this point.

He had been walking down the long, dark back corridor that the security guard, Oddball had pointed him down for several minutes. According to the map Sahirah had given him it was a back way around the spinning room and most of the experiment rooms used by the Unspeakables. It was dark, eerie and the dim magelights gave him a slight headache from trying to look up ahead, the light he kept in his deluminator was not helping much with headache prevention.

It was also incredibly dusty and made him sneeze.

The silence was broken by a noise up ahead and Ron pocketed his deluminator and broke into a steady, quiet jog with the cushioning charms he had put on his shoes.

Suddenly, he found his feet flying over his head as he entered an open space and a cold, splitting pain down the back of his skull.

"Oh, you are _not_ dumb enough to do this twice."

It was becoming very clear that he had run straight into one of Audrey's traps.

Ron turned his head, Audrey sat on a bottom step of a nearby staircase and crossed her arms, and clearly not feeling threatened now that he was on the floor. She looked smaller and eerier in the shadows of the room in a uniform that was too large for her slight frame. The ice at her feet had melted, but he could still feel the bitter cold beneath him. If he tried to get up he would find himself back on the floor.

" _Ugh…_ How did you know I following you?"

"You _sneezed_ and it sounded like a train! You should see someone about that!"

Nobody, absolutely nobody, could find out that was how he got caught. Thwarted by dust.

Audrey's foot tapped in irritation while she glanced around the room and peered behind Ron suspiciously, "You're not here alone, are you?"

Ron groaned. "You're right. I'm not. I'm here to help you."

Audrey looked like she had just been punched in face. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You know Frank Reeve?"

The ice melted beneath him while Audrey nodded. "Went to school with him."

Ron sat up and tried to ease the throbbing in his skull with a cooling charm before he tried to perform a healing spell on himself. Something he had actually never done before.

"Reeve's after you about something. He's been focused on it since our training class started with your teacher."

Ron could not focus on the healing charm he needed. His head was throbbing to badly to focus on what was sure to be the large goose egg forming on the back of his head.

Audrey made a thoughtful noise. "I'd fix your head, but I'm not a very good healer I'm afraid. Anyway, continue."

"We have evidence, Audrey. You've been seen in places you had no business being in by a few different people. I just want to know why so we can clear all of this up and you can go back to doing whatever it is you do for Lowell."

Her eyes rolled dismissively as she got to her feet, brushing the dirt off the seat of her robes. The security department wore combat robes like the Enforcers and the Aurors, the end was supposed to be at the knees; Audrey's went to the top of her boots. Ron could have sworn he saw something shiny sticking out of her right boot for a brief moment.

"First of all, five other people have my level of clearance."

Ron blinked.

"Secondly, I can go where the Minister can, within reason because I've been assigned permanently to his support staff."

Kingsley was careful to personally pick out his people. Audrey would not have clearance or work in the support staff office if Kingsley did not trust her.

"And Lowell?"

Audrey tilted her head slightly, "Lastly, that's classified."

Ron got to his feet and kept his hand on the back of his head as the throbbing dulled. Audrey stayed where she was at the bottom of the stairs and peered up at him, as if she was still trying to figure him out. Perhaps also how much she could tell him without giving too much away.

Aside from the staircase, there was another corridor ahead of Ron and a couple of other doors off to the side of the room. This was not a highly used area by the Unspeakables, but it was traveled through. Possibly a back exit in case something got loose.

There was only the sound of the steady dripping of a leaky pipe down the back corridor. The air just reeked of mistrust. Audrey scuffed her boot on the floor while looking at him thoughtfully.

"You went turncloak on Reeve pretty quickly, why should I trust you?"

Ron found her wand pointed in his face.

"State your case Weasley."

Ron put his hands up in a sign of surrender while he tried to find a way to not put his foot in his mouth. This was it, if Ron was going to get trustworthy help to get to the bottom of everything that was going on, this was the moment. If he got this wrong, there would be a nasty duel that Ron could not be sure of the outcome of.

He remembered something Scully and Cadwallader had said at the bar.

Ron smiled, "You're not going to hurt me. You're just trying to scare me off."

"What makes you so sure?" The tip of her wand lit up with a bright red light. "If you have nothing to offer except ideas of my character, you can go somewhere else."

"How's Percy doing?"

Audrey's wand dimmed so quickly it was like flipping a switch; Audrey lowered her wand while her face turned a stunning pink. Ron kept his face impassive, attacking Percy's brother would not progress whatever was going on between the two of them, something that Audrey clearly enjoyed.

He made a note to listen to more barkeeps; Scully was clearly a man who knew a great many things.

"I don't think he would like his friend putting his little brother in the hospital."

Audrey's face took a blank expression. "I-I was not going to put you in the hospital."

She was probably going to rewrite his memories, something she mentioned doing to some poor toerags for Lowell.

Ron shook his head, "You wanted me to state my case? Alright then, as much as you pretend to be, you're not a bad person."

Audrey raised an eyebrow and adjusted the collar of her peacock blue security uniform. She took a step back to try and put some more distance between them and crossed her arms in front of her chest and hunched over slightly. She seemed to disagree with his opinion.

"I saw your file. There was a note about you protecting your dad-"

Audrey's eyes became the size of saucers before they narrowed coldly. Her voice was cold; Ron could see the ice on her fingertips and felt the temperature drop. "He's not my _dad_ , he's my _father_. There's a difference."

All right, daddy issues.

"You could have disappeared, hid in plain sight, but you stayed to fight."

Audrey's icy eyes peered up at him through the shadow of her mousey brown hair. "I have a right to stay and fight for my home, my life, and my right to magic."

Ron pitied her. "That's all?" There was more to life then studying magic.

Audrey scuffed her boot on the floor and shrugged. "I couldn't leave Septimus, you've noticed he doesn't walk very well and he's very mouthy."

Ron made an agreeable noise.

"If you've seen my file, then I'm sure you've noticed I had no home left in that world anyway." She bit her bottom lip and took another step away from him and looked at the ground focusing on a particular crack in the tile. "Protection charms around Aran's place bought me more time to disappear. That's all."

Not protecting her muggle father probably would have gotten the man tortured or executed with the record she had in order to try and get her out of hiding. Ron had doubts that Audrey could live with that kind of guilt; even with what was a loveless relationship between the two of them.

"I don't think that's the whole story."

Audrey smiled darkly and looked at the wall behind him, "You're right, it's not, but the whole story is nothing that concerns you. Which is something I believe we have already discussed just a few days ago."

She pulled a small gold chain out of her pocket, like something that would be on a piece of jewelry and held it in front of her on an open palm. It glowed softly and small gold charm at the end pointed down a long dark corridor.

"You want to come with me?"

"Huh?"

"You said you wanted to help clear my name. I have a lead, but if I'm right, I may need some help."

"With what?"

"You'll help me better by not knowing everything right now."

Ron felt rage start to simmer in his gut and creep slowly up his neck. No, he was not going to do this on her terms. Trust was a two way street and he did not care to walk into anything blind with someone who held all of the cards.

"If you don't trust me enough to be honest with me, go by yourself."

He turned and began to walk up the stairs. Ron stopped suddenly and turned back to Audrey, who looked very confused, complete with a doglike head tilt. She shrugged and turned to walk down the corridor following the little glowing chain in her hand that seemed to be pulling her in a particular direction and to a door halfway down the corridor.

Ron took another few steps up and pulled his map out of his pocket. Saying he never saw Audrey would not help get Reeve off her back. It would solve none of the mysteries around this place that Ron had been investigating. Lastly, Ron did not leave things like this unfinished.

He sighed, this woman was complicated and dangerous, and Ron was not sure how involved he wanted or needed to be to see this through. He could play by her rules for now and wash his hands of her until she came around for dinner at the Burrow. The other choice was to walk away now and let her deal with Reeve alone, which seemed to be how she preferred to deal with things.

The floor shook with such violence that Ron fell to his knees with a shout as his knees hit the stone and tile beneath him. He waited until the shaking stopped and moved slowly down the steps where a very familiar noise filled his senses.

The loud crackle and snap of battle magic from beyond the door Audrey had entered a few moments before.

 _That might not be good_.

Ron finished his climb down the stairs and jogged to the door Audrey had disappeared through. He heard the sounds grow more intense and he pulled out his wand and flung the door open with a spell before dashing through the door with his shield charm up and ready.

He was promptly blasted back through the door by spell rebound.

That was not the smartest thing he had done today.

Ron got back on his feet and put up a shield charm again and walked back into the room.

What Ron saw when he entered the room was the weirdest thing he would see this week.

Though not as weird as Cat-Hermione in second year.

Audrey was getting to her feet and was looking around nervously, like she had dropped something, she was bleeding from a cut on her head. Her hands were empty and there was no sign of her wand. Ron looked over for her opponent and his mouth fell open.

It was another Audrey.

This one picking herself up off the floor clutching a bleeding arm as she glared at the other woman from behind an old desk. She walked out from behind the desk with a noticeable limp.

Ron looked around and took in the damage to the room that looked like it had a better chance of staying in one piece in an actual earthquake; it seemed to be an old office. He noticed something as he stepped forward for a better look to try and find out which Audrey was the real one, it was a wand peaking out from under a piece of wood. He picked up the wand and put it in his back pocket.

The Audrey who was bleeding from her head was now clutching her chest and staggered forward. There was still fight in her eyes.

"Hey, look what I got!" Ron held up the wand he had picked up. The women looked over at him stunned.

 _"That's my wand!"_ They both said in unison.

Well, this could be a problem.

"Ron," The one with a head wound said quietly, "I need that back."

"Don't listen to her, she's been impersonating me for weeks!" The other one gasped as she staggered forward.

 _"Homini revelare,"_ Ron swished his wand and nothing about either woman changed. If either of them was in disguise or using polyjuice potion it should have revealed their true face.

The two Audreys in front of him were identical. It would be a difficult task to find the right one even if the right woman was here. He needed to ask a question only the real Audrey would know, but he did not know her that well.

Okay, what did he know about her? She has a wartime record, some shady connections, and is a gifted witch. She was also shy and easily embarrassed. He had to work this in such a way that the false one would not gain an advantage.

Information specifically from her file might be off limits too; to risky if the false Audrey had read it.

"I have three questions, answer them correctly, and prove your identity, you'll get the wand."

They nodded.

"How many apprentices did Lowell have before you?"

 _"Six."_ They answered in unison, glaring at each other as they did so.

Okay then, Ron, do better.

"What is the name of my brother who works in the Minister's office?"

"Percy." The Audrey who was bleeding from the head turned pink in the face. Ron made a disgusted noise, had an inkling of an idea and pressed on.

"How did you get that scar on your hand?"

The Audrey with the arm injury examined her hands closely in confusion. The real one punched her in the mouth and showed him her scarred hand.

"Wand! _Now!"_

Ron threw her the wand; Audrey caught it, fumbling a bit on the catch, and blasted the dazed impersonator into the wall. The force of Audrey's magic left the copy pressed against the wall a meter off the ground. The copy screeched as its head bounced off the wall and its hair fell in front of its eyes. "You were supposed to be meek and spineless! To invested in your books to let anything or anyone into your life!"

Audrey's eyes narrowed and glimmered like chips of ice. "Who made you, puppet?" She pointed her wand at the copy's chest, pulling it away from the wall and slamming it back into it while it cried out in pain. "Simulacrum can't stray far from their masters."

Simulacrum? Ron repeated the word in his head to try and figure out its meaning along with where he had heard it before. He was starting to think he had bit off more then he could chew with this case.

The simulacrum smiled, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Audrey pulled it forward and flung the simulacrum over her head, onto the floor behind her with a resounding bang. Ron heard a cracking noise as the simulacrum landed on top of some of the rubble from the earlier explosion.

The thing screamed.

Ron winced and rushed over to grab Audrey's arm to stop her from doing it again. "Okay, you've made your point!"

Audrey rammed her elbow into his gut with such force; his grip on her loosened enough for her to go free. Ron doubled over trying to suck in the air that was forced from his lungs with a dry, desperate noise.

The simulacrum was lying on the floor, stunned from the blows Audrey had laid down upon it. Audrey's wand was lit with a red light that she brought down to the thing's chest that caused it's whole body to glow for a brief moment before it split open with a noise that reminded Ron of splitting wood and Audrey shoved her hand into its chest.

"Where is it?" She whispered as her hand moved around inside the simulacrum's chest.

Ron was started to get his breath back as Audrey gave a triumphant cry as the simulacrum twitched violently and gave a final sigh as she put the mechanical thing she had pulled out its chest next to its still body.

Audrey stood back up and walked back to Ron and knelt down next to him.

Ron was confused, "What did you do?"

She looked at him calmly, "You've never fought a simulacrum. They don't feel pain, and you have to remove their heart, or kill their master otherwise they will keep rising to fulfill their mission."

"You've done that before?"

"Spot of trouble in Germany a couple of years ago when I first started my apprenticeship. One of Septimus's contacts turned and we had to fight our way out." Audrey sat down and Ron followed her lead.

Magical research suddenly sounded a lot more dangerous then Ron had imagined. He wondered briefly how her career interview fifth year had gone over, because he did not remember a career pamphlet for clone murder.

"Why don't Aurors handle stuff like that?"

Audrey sighed, "Aurors are some of the greatest duelists in the world, but they don't have the…" She paused and moved her hand around to try and jog her thoughts. "Finesse, or obscure knowledge that researchers like me have access too to kill something like this. Most of us are solitary and bookish, hiding in libraries to write papers and reports for the journals. Septimus and I write papers too, but we're a bit unique for going out and applying it on field jobs when we get them."

His dad was right; the man was clearly an exceptional teacher considering how quickly Audrey had put the simulacrum down in a weakened state. Though it was not just teaching, Audrey had to have some exceptional magical talents of her own to merely survive her apprenticeship and the war.

"Do other researchers fight as well as you?"

"No," Audrey's face turned a deep crimson while she tried to stop the bleeding from the cut on her head. "Septimus was once an Auror, he's a proper warlock, likes to fight and throw spells around. I got good because that's what he likes to teach me. He wanted me to have at least a thirty percent chance of surviving the war considering I graduated school after Dumbledore died."

Those shadows under her eyes made her look older then nineteen.

"Your file said you've been working for him for two years?"

Audrey shrugged, "I did him a favor, he gave me a place to stay in the shop and then hired me on after I had, er… words with Fred and George about their firework testing."

"You weren't even out of school yet."

"I had to grew up fast. Septimus pushed me to go back to school for my NEWTs instead of quitting to work fulltime. He said my grades were to good not to go back. Not really a mindset that makes it easy to talk to people your own age."

"Any other reason you were investigating this aside from clearing your name?"

Audrey looked at the husk of the simulacrum for a moment before turning back to Ron. "I need to know who's behind this, and there's something else I need to find out about too."

"Do you think it's tied to this?"

Audrey shrugged. "I can't say, but a crime was committed." She bit her lip and pressed her fingers together. "Did you hear about what happened to Selene Scoresby?"

"The publisher in Diagon Alley?" Ron shuddered at the memory of even hearing about that and the rage in Lee's voice when he told the story. "Yeah, I heard about it on PotterWatch a while back."

"I knew Selene Scoresby." Ron gave Audrey his full attention. "She was an incredibly nice woman, when I heard the details about what had happened to her, I had to find her killer. Her daughter Serena, she deserves justice for what she saw happen to mother." Audrey's eyes were wet and she turned away to try and hide it. "I met Serena after the war, this ten year old kid was homeless and stealing to try and get by. We finally got her in with an old neighbor of hers a couple of weeks ago, but she comes to hang out at the Leaky Cauldron to play darts with a Cappie Garland, a kid Septimus decided to take in." Audrey wiped her eyes and they grew hard. Ron noted the boy's last name corresponded with the names in her file. "And she named Sergius Sloan as her mother's killer."

"Sergius Sloan? The Head of the Floo Regulations department?"

Ron's mouth fell open. This could shake up the Ministry; Sloan was a well-respected official even after the war.

"The very same. He's been investigating crime and corruption within the Ministry and has a history of going through my locker without a warrant. Sloan _tried_ to interrogate me over a book I had in there a few weeks ago. He hasn't cared to try again."

That might explain how Sloan had run afoul Percy.

"I've been hoping to catch Sloan at some other nefarious things or corner him into a confession, but he's been good about avoiding me."

"How many people saw him execute Selene?"

"According to my sources, ten. Including her daughter, a few other children Selene was caring for and some shopkeepers who had not been run out but afterwards were threatened into silence. Fowler told me exactly what he saw after a couple glasses of whiskey so I could look into it." Audrey paused. "He also gave me the memory."

That memory was a damning piece of evidence, but memories could be tampered with.

"Is there anyone else who could give a memory to confirm what happened?"

"I'm working on that now, but he's pretty hard to find and he'll need convincing. It seems easier to corner Sloan and put the pressure on while I have a recording charm ready."

Well, she's either Gryffindor levels of brave or crazy and Ron was not sure which.

"Anyway," Audrey sighed and ran her fingers through her short wavy hair, she looked exhausted. Dealing with all of that would be incredibly stressful. "Where's your friend, Reeve?"

"I was going to meet him-" Before Ron could finish he had a thought. "Audrey, how far can a simulacrum be from its creator?"

Audrey blinked owlishly, once, twice and her mouth fell open. She got to her feet quickly and went to the husk, kneeling next to the simulacrum and picking up its mechanical heart, holding it in her hands for a moment. Still holding it in her left hand she pulled out her wand and whispered a spell that Ron could not hear. Audrey looked around quickly and the heart glowed brightly. She put the heart down and stood up.

"Depends on the creator, the source of the spell looks like it is coming from the entryway to the Department of Mysteries."

Where Ron was going to meet Reeve.

Ron felt his jaw clench and his temper flare. That son of a bitch! Reeve tried to frame Audrey so he could go about his business without any interference. What did he want?

"How do you want to handle this?" Audrey asked quietly.

Ron was a bit at a loss. There was no discernable motive that he could see right now. "I don't know."

Audrey gave him a hawkish look. "You're the Auror, I'm a civilian."

Vigilante if one wanted to get technical.

"I think arresting someone is more your job then mine."

"He made that thing to look like you! I think you get a say!"

"And he made me look incompetent, but that still does not make me qualified to be an Auror!"

Ron groaned and rubbed his temple, "You led a rescue operation."

Her face turned a luminescent pink, "I didn't mean to!"

"How do you do that?"

"I stopped asking that question a long time ago."

Ron's brain began to click together with ideas, he felt like he was staring at a chessboard. Audrey, the rook, had struck down the simulacrum pawn. Reeve, as the opposing king could be put in a checkmate with Ron acting as the knight in tandem with the rook.

"I might have an idea."

Audrey raised an eyebrow.

"But you'll have to trust me."

Audrey groaned.

Oo0OO0

 _ **A/N:**_ _Sit tight for fight scenes. Something I enjoy writing, quite a bit._


	7. Walnut

_Walnut_

Theme _: Versatility and Adaptability_

 _July 27, 1998_

Audrey struggled and fought against the binding spell on her wrists as they came to the door that led to the central room of the Department of Mysteries. "This better work," Audrey mumbled.

"It will," He put his hand on her wrist to check her wand holster. Empty.

"And if it goes wrong?"

Ron struggled to find a satisfactory answer. "I'm sure you'll notice before I do."

Audrey's mousey hair bounced as she nodded.

What a vote of confidence.

"Here we go," Ron opened the door with a flick of his wand and nudged Audrey through the door into the circular Department of Mysteries entryway.

The room itself was dimly lit and it took Ron's eyes a moment to adjust. He could see two figures, one of them was Reeve the other was an older man with some indistinguishable features from this distance. Ron could tell the older man was clutching his hand in apparent agony; he would release his hand to gesture angrily at Reeve who had his hands up passively in front of him.

As they moved closer, Audrey sucked in a soft breath through her clenched teeth.

"Where is she? I need the counter-curse!" The older man gestured wildly at one of his hands as his voice echoed off the walls. "I'll kill her!"

Audrey tried to step back and hissed under her breath. _"Oh, shit."_

"You're not supposed to be here!" Reeve's voice sounded like it was edging into panic.

Interesting.

Ron jerked Audrey back by her upper arm to remind her to start putting up a fight. It brought him close enough to her ear to whisper, _"Stick to the plan, okay?"_

 _"The sewer plan was better!"_ She hissed as Ron straightened himself.

 _"You said you preferred this one!"_

 _"I've changed my mind!"_

Ron rolled his eyes as he nudged her forward. The two men were still far away. If Audrey wanted to look like she was going quietly instead, that was her choice.

Audrey shoved the back of her head into the middle of his chest, hard enough to bruise and knock the air out of him for a moment while she started screaming. "GET YOUR HANDS _OFF_ ME! YOU MINISTRY LOVING _KISS ARSE_!"

Why did she hit him so _hard?_

Reeve and the other man turned to look at them at her outburst. Ron turned his focus onto the two men for a moment and recognized the second one. Audrey's fighting and struggling became much worse when she made eye contact with Sloan, hiding her fear with rage.

This was the last thing they needed. Sloan was supposed to be something brought up to Kingsley after Reeve was in custody. Now he was going to be another obstacle to getting out alive.

Maybe they should have gone through the sewer.

"You're working with this purist son of a bitch?" Audrey slammed her boot onto Ron's foot and lunged at Sloan.

Sloan was only a head taller then the girl whose head he wanted on a plate. His face was hawkish with fast greying hair, sunken eyes and looked well into his forties. Pure nastiness had worn away what could have once been a moderately attractive face. He was back to grasping his left hand with his right in obvious pain. Ron winced; the hand he had been fussing over was near black with frostbite.

Sloan stared coldly at Audrey while Ron pulled tightened his binding charm to make it look like he was putting effort into keeping a senior official protected from an undersized nutcase. "Undo the curse on my hand! _Now!"_

Audrey stopped moving and grew very still. Her shoulders moved upwards as much as they could in a slight shrug, "I warned you to stay out of my locker unless you had a warrant," her voice was low and threatening. "So, I haven't actually done anything."

Reeve's mouth hung open like he was catching flies as he watched the scene in front of him.

Ron was sure he was matching Reeve's expression.

"Clearly, Lowell doesn't muzzle his dogs."

"Better Septimus' dog then a Death Eater's bitch."

Sloan gripped his frostbitten hand and just trembled in rage as he stepped forward. _"What_ did you say to me?"

Ron pulled Audrey back quickly.

 _Can't believe she said that…_

Reeve pulled himself together and stepped forward between Audrey and Sloan, who was going for his wand. Ron pulled Audrey back another step and to the right, weakening his binding charm so if he had to cut her loose she could move away quickly and have a clear shot.

"Let's all calm down."

Ron smiled awkwardly, "That's a good idea, I need to take Causey up to the second floor so we can put her in lockup and start questioning her." Ron took another step back. It would be a stupid idea to fight Reeve or Sloan on a battlefield they chose.

"Exactly," Reeve smiled and turned his attention to Sloan with a flattering smile, "I'm sure as soon as Causey's in the holding cells we can persuade her to fix your hand for you and we can get the curse on that locker removed."

"Oh, Reeve," Ron stepped back another couple of steps to try and give Audrey and Sloan a wide berth as he nudged her forward, "they'll want to talk to you about everything you found during your investigation while the paperwork gets started."

In the moments that followed, Audrey proved herself to be Gryffindor levels of stupid.

"Don't leave me alone!" Audrey tried to turn back to face him, panic evident in her voice and her efforts to get free increased. She seemed to forget that that this was a fake arrest and was now trying to dig her heel into the floor through his big toe. "Sloan'll blow my head off like he did Selene Scoresby!"

There was a tense silence in the room.

Reeve broke the silence first, his eyes wide in shock. "What did she say?"

Sloan's face looked like it was carved out of stone.

Audrey stopped trying to crush his toe with the heel of her boot and straightened her spine. Ron suddenly understood what she was doing. Audrey did not trust the Ministry to take care of Sloan, so she would try and do it herself with him standing right in front of her. It would not give him or Reeve a chance to disappear or flee from the Aurors as apparition in and out of the Ministry was prohibited with powerful wards.

Well, Ron's life had been short, but entertaining.

"Do you deny it, Sloan?" Her voice was calm and more terrifying for its tone a few notches over a whisper. "There were witnesses, you made sure of that and they're talking now."

Sloan's teeth ground together as he gripped his wand tightly.

The shuffling of Ron's feet was the only thing Ron heard as he pulled Audrey back another couple of steps before she dug herself in and refused to go back any further.

"I saw the memories, _I have them!"_ Ice formed on the edge of her clothing. "When you go to trial I will make sure Selene's daughter to there see the monster who killed her mother is put away for good!"

"Sloan, is that true?" Reeve breathed, his face betraying his shock as he stared at his cohort and took a step away from him.

"She begged for mercy. She begged for the children to not see it and you made sure they _stayed!"_ Audrey's voice cracked in rage on the last word.

Sloan's face was cold.

Ron felt his stomach drop to his shoes.

"If you never thought you'd have to dirty your hands, Reeve, you were wrong."

"Decapitating a woman in front of her daughter?" Reeve looked horrified and pale as he took another step away from Sloan, Ron felt bad for him. "Was that necessary?"

Ron undid the binding charm on Audrey and kept his wand behind her back. The ropes around her wrists would fade away shortly.

"That woman was a threat to the new world, inciting acts of rebellion with her pretty words and printing press. No husband to protect her, the bastard daughter's better off without her whore mother."

"That's all I needed to hear." Audrey muttered as her bindings disappeared as she knelt down quickly to draw her wand out of her boot and pointed it towards Sloan as she got to her feet. _"EXPULSO!"_

Sloan barely spun out of the way in time as Audrey's curse flew past his face with a roar like thunder. Sloan clutched his ear with an enraged shout as blood dribbled down his neck. A water pipe exploded from the force of Audrey's curse somewhere behind Sloan.

Ron saw terror in Sloan's eyes as he fired a bright red light at Audrey. Ron tackled Audrey out of the line of fire down to the stone floor, she yelped as she hit the floor. Ron rolled off of her and hit Reeve with an impediment jinx while the sound of crumbling of rock and tile somewhere behind him and at the far side of the echoed in his ears.

Ron and Audrey got to their feet and went to work.

Audrey was quickly locked into a duel with Reeve who had shaken off Ron's jinx and started firing spells at Audrey who was deflecting them into the walls and ceiling, before getting her counterattack in. When she began to fire back with spells of her own, she moved gracefully from offensive to defensive to back Reeve away from a position where he could help Sloan.

Sloan, on the other hand, was fast and made it very difficult for Ron to get a meaningful shot at him. Sloan's blasting curses would fly past Ron and into the wall behind him. Many of those spells Ron narrowly avoided with shield charms that would fracture into pieces on impact from the curse. Ron scrambled back from Sloan's steady advance to try and take in an opportunity for a better shot. Sloan threw a spell at Audrey who turned just in time to deflect it away into the water pipes above their heads, causing them to burst. Reeve took advantage of Audrey's distraction and hit her in the shoulder with such force she spun, lost her balance and hit the floor with a shout.

Ron hit Reeve in the face with a confundus charm. He immediately sported a large, toothy smile of obliviousness. Reeve blinked and picked up a rock to examine it closely, "Hey, you know what kind of rock this is?"

Sloan's eyes rolled as he threw up a shield charm and pointed his wand at the ground below. The floor moved up like a rising wave on the ocean and threw Ron and Audrey up into air back to a large pile of rubble.

Ron felt the rocks poking to his back. Nothing felt broken; Audrey was already on her feet and covering him with some quick spellwork. Sloan seemed to have reversed the spell on Reeve who was looking around with confusion evident in his body language.

"We need some cover," Audrey said as she dodged a cerulean hex and clutched her shoulder.

"Back there!" Ron pointed at the pile of rocks and stone behind them.

"Perfect!" Audrey pulled a small bag out a pouch attached to her belt. She threw it at Sloan and Reeve, who promptly scrambled back, the bag promptly exploded as it hit the floor. It was Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder; Ron did not want to ask how she had gotten any.

He pushed Audrey at the pile of rocks first and scrambled up after her, outpacing her to help her over the top, but tumbling over before Audrey after losing his balance before they were engulfed in total darkness.

Audrey landed of top of him with a muffled, embarrassed apology quickly climbing off of him, accidently putting her hand over his mouth to get her bearings.

" _Tawdrwy!"_

"Sorry! There's no need to _slobber_ on me." She wiped her hand on his shoulder. "Got another plan, Ron?"

"Yeah, split'em up," Reeve and Sloan worked well together, or covered each other's weaknesses at any rate. What Reeve lacked in raw power, he made up with his brain and planning skills.

Audrey was quiet for a moment, "I can take Sloan."

"What about your shoulder?"

"Won't stop me. Just keep Reeve busy."

"You sure?"

"He's volatile, paranoid and about to pay a hell of a butcher's bill."

Ron could hear the finality in her voice and knew there was going to be no talking her out of it.

"He'll be alive when you're done, right?"

"I make no promises."

Why was everyone Ron met somewhere on the scale of lunacy?

"Get Reeve over to that side room we came through earlier, I'll get him in, follow him then you block the door off behind me."

"Done." Ron felt her move next to him and throw something towards the door they had entered through "Decoy Detonator, don't ask me how I got it."

They listened to Sloan and Reeve fumble around in the darkness looking for them as the powder in the air dissipated slowly. Audrey suddenly pressed something into Ron's chest.

"My last bit of powder and decoy detonator. I don't think I'll need them." With that Audrey was on her feet and hauling herself over the rubble. It was getting much easier to see, Audrey's outline was peering over at their opponents, staying low. Ron moved closer to the door while still staying under cover behind the pile of rocks and stone.

Reeve was going towards the door; Sloan had decided to hold his ground until the powder cleared away. It was still cloudy enough where Reeve was to confuse him into making his way closer to the door.

He had lined himself up with it at the edge of the dark fog.

Ron took his shot, hitting Reeve in the back and blasting him through the door as the darkness powder finally dissipated.

Ron made a mad dash for the door. He glanced back to see Sloan getting ready to fire, Ron ducked behind a pillar, only to hear Sloan suddenly shouting as Audrey transfigured several small throwing knives and sent them whistling through the air.

Sloan fired back with a jet of green light that made Ron's breath catch in horrified recognition as he ran out to go help Audrey. She conjured a large shield to block the curse before she flung the shield at Sloan and turning her wand on Ron to throw him backwards through the door.

Audrey slammed the door behind him with a spell and a chill filled the corridor as she iced the door over.

Ron was alone.

* * *

Audrey covered the door with a thick wall of ice from floor to ceiling with water she had gotten from the pipes she had blown at the start of the fight before turning her full attention to her opponent.

It was just her and Sloan now.

"I imagine you have more to say now that we're alone." Sloan said calmly, his face betraying nothing Audrey could use as he clutched his bleeding head.

"I think you shut down the Diagon Alley floo network in May during the riot, you're the only one in the Ministry with that kind of authority and access aside from the Minister. My home was burned to ash to cover valuable information being stolen from the shop. A lot of people were hurt and I think you were working with the perpetrator." Audrey's head filled with visions of fire and smoke and pulling an unconscious Septimus away from their home and bookshop. "And we've already talked about Selene."

Sloan made an approving noise, "Nolan said you were intelligent."

Audrey felt her guts turn and twist in fear. "He turned on me, Sloan. What makes you so sure he won't do the same to you."

Sloan smiled. "I'm going to give you a choice, you can let me go and save yourself the trouble of putting yourself back in Saint Mungo's, we both know you're in no shape to fight someone like me after Nolan put you there. You can go back to your master, forget all of this and live the long honored life of a war veteran, have a normal life and die peacefully in your sleep of old age."

He had a point, the wounds from her duel with Nolan in the atrium had been slow healing, a severe concussion, several broken ribs, punctured lung and lastly the spell that had sent her into cardiac arrest after a full force hit to the chest. That was the thing that almost killed her, and even for wizards the heart and organs were difficult to repair with magic. By all accounts, she should still be on light duty, or on medical leave, but this was not something she could put in another person's hands. If she fought now, this would be her last major duel for some time, she could fight now, finish this threat or save her strength for another fight that could come down the road at any point. Audrey just gripped her wand tighter.

"And if I don't?"

Sloan's teeth bore in a kind of snarl, "You'll die a soldier's death in the old man's name, just as you've always wanted."

"I'm taking a third option. Fight you; win and-" Audrey raised her wand- "see you rot in Azkaban."

A stream of fire shot out of Sloan's wand. The heat of the blast was immense, Audrey could feel it long before it was even close to her. At her command, the fire turned into a long chain that Audrey took control of to send it back through the air towards Sloan.

It caught him around the neck.

Sloan grabbed it with his good hand and tried to yank it off his windpipe while he gasped for air before he came to his senses and turned it into string with a flick of his wand. He rubbed his neck as it fell away, glaring at Audrey from beneath his brow.

This, Audrey thought, was going to be a long, hard fight.

Enforcers, even retired ones, were not known for backing down from a fight. Sloan, being somewhere in his forties, was a bit young for retirement though, if he had a career ending injury, she would exploit it.

She did not survive the front line by being soft.

He showed a steady stance, indicating a lack of previous debilitating injuries aside from the frostbite curse on his left hand. That would have to be her target. The curse would grow more severe as time passed.

Audrey swiped her wand through the air, focusing on the spell in her mind. She could not hold her focus with the giant battle-axe hurtling at her. Audrey wished he would stop showing off as she dove out of the way.

As she hit the stone floor below, a flock of canaries burst from the tip of her wand and flew towards Sloan in a chirping a chorus of high-pitched birdsong. The inside of her head rang. Sloan began blasting the birds away as Audrey got to her feet and took a few steps forward. She could get in close and put the pressure on him to end this fight quickly so she could go help Ron.

No telling what kind of unnatural powers Reeve had.

Her frost curse crackled through the air.

Sloan ducked down and countered with a disarming spell. Audrey blocked it and retaliated with _expulso_ , but it was cut short with a second disarming spell.

As her wand landed in Sloan's outstretched hand, an unnatural smile split his hawkish face. Audrey clutched at her aching chest and noted that this was not her finest moment and Septimus could not find out about it.

* * *

Ron's breath left a small, white cloud in front of him that disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. His teeth chattered.

The corridor was still and silent like a crypt.

Reeve was nowhere to be seen.

The only light came from the small orbs of light on the walls as Ron walked along, watching and listening for any sign of Reeve. He stayed quiet, casting none verbal cushioning charms on his shoes and a supersensory charm not wanting to give any advantages as he walked down the corridor.

As Ron emerged in the room where he had met Audrey an hour ago, he heard a crunching noise behind him and turned around quickly his wand out of his holster only to be thrown back several meters. His shoulder hit the floor first; he rolled a couple more times until he stopped. Ron picked himself off the floor. The air was slightly distorted in a particular part of the room that seemed to be moving closer to him.

Disillusionment charm.

Original.

Reeve's spell broke and his blond hair fell into his eyes.

"I gift wrapped you an opportunity to be more then the sidekick and you just threw it away? You could have walked away from this with all the glory if you had just kept your head down and your mouth shut." He threw his hands up in disbelief, "I just don't understand some people."

"I'm an Auror, Reeve. Being nosy and investigating claims is part of my job. The other half is stopping people like you."

"Like me?" Reeve scoffed. "I'm trying to make the world a better place."

Ron got to his feet and tightened his grip on his wand. Reeve just needed to keep talking.

"A better place? By framing a woman who did nothing to you? A Muggle-born in Shacklebolt's inner circle? It sounds like a half-arsed justification to me."

Reeve's face colored. "Causey's not dangerous, her master is."

"You still don't get to try and set them up as your fall downs."

Reeve smiled and shrugged, "Knowledge gives one more power then mere magical might. I suspected you had turned on me when I was looking through my simulacrum's eyes before Causey ripped out its heart."

"Looking through its eyes?" Ron was definitely taking Harry and Hermione out for drinks to tell this story. It would be less weird after a glass of firewhiskey.

"She's didn't explain much, did she?" Reeve laughed. "Just enough to keep you where she needed you."

Just how they were made, not how they worked.

Plus, they were a little busy planning how to get out of the Department of Mysteries, capture Reeve and arrest Sloan.

"It's not like she's ever made one." Reeve continued, "You think magically gifted wizards make simulacrum? It's too technical for them to do without blowing something up. Causey was just a sacrificial pawn because we were in the same year at school, I know her well enough to make it convincing."

"War changes people Reeve, kids grow up, and Audrey's back there making your mate Sloan pay a butcher's bill for what he did to the Scoresby woman."

Reeve looked nervous, but quickly wiped it clean of expression.

"If he still has his head at lunch, I'll be really surprised."

Reeve took a step back and put his hands up in front of him in an effort to appear harmless. "Ron, I like you, you're a decent bloke and I don't care to duel you."

"Can't say I feel the same." Ron's stunner sliced through the air.

Reeve faded away as Ron's spell shot through his face like he was never there at all. Ron staggered back and kept his wand up as he looked around quickly for the real Reeve.

The walls of the room seemed to be closing in. Everything seemed to be moving, swaying back and forth as it grew harder to focus.

 _Calm down, focus, and breathe. He's here. I just need to find him._

Ron turned back to the corridor he had entered the room from. He had gotten hit in the back on his way in, so the real Reeve was over there when he came in. The smart thing would have been to move as far from that spot as soon as he could, but still be close enough to cast his spells.

Possibly another disillusionment charm…

Ron quickly locked the doors with quick flicks of his wand and walled off the corridor with the door where the simulacrum's remains were with a barrier spell. Ron examined the staircase. Thanks to the supersensory charm, Ron could see a distortion at the very top. He brushed his gaze over it to the other side of the room before casting his spell.

 _"Glisseo!"_ The stairs folded inwards and formed a slide

There was a shout and a loud thump from the bottom of the newly formed slide.

"Stupefy!" Reeve jumped to his feet and avoided Ron's spell by falling backwards from the sudden movement.

Reeve jumped up and fired a violet curse at Ron, who ducked down and could have sworn he felt it singe his hair on his way down. Ron protected himself from a jet of fire with his shield charm. When the fire dissipated, Ron levitated Reeve into the air and dropped him to the floor below.

Reeve managed to slow himself on his way down.

Ron saw an opportunity and fired another spell, catching Reeve in the hip. He spun from the force of it through the air and hit his head wall behind him. Reeve gripped his head and groaned and he slid to the floor.

As Ron was about to stun him and leave, an indecipherable incantation fell from Reeve's lips. Before Ron could do anything, he felt himself being encased in earth and stone that came from beneath and around him. It grew dark very quickly. Ron could reach out and touch the walls with his hands.

This wasn't good.

* * *

Sloan grasped Audrey's wand out of the air with a malicious grin as she clutched her chest and tried to catch her breath as he moved closer. The pain in her chest was moving outwards. Sloan continued to walk forward as he began to speak.

"I heard about you from the officers sent after your motley crew when you escaped your trial, you know?" Sloan said calmly with a chilly smile, as he put her wand in his sleeve. "They wanted you dead, especially after hitting those prisoner transports to Azkaban."

Three prisoner transports, the fourth and final one they hit was a last ditch effort to find Septimus that was unsuccessful as it was a decoy to try and lure them out of hiding.

"Those who survived reported seeing a rabbit sitting on the path before they got ambushed. There were also reports of a falcon patronus. Was that your people?"

Audrey's mouth tightened into a thin line and avoided making eye contact with Sloan.

"You attacked Snatcher groups, Ministry officials and anyone else who got in your way. You were such a busy girl."

He took another step closer.

"Quite exceptional, most would have died attempting something like that and yet you survived."

Audrey wanted to puke.

"Are you going to say anything?"

A crazy idea prodded the edge of her mind.

Audrey crouched to pull something out of her boot, her fingers wrapping around a cold metal handle. She lunged for him holding a thin dagger.

Sloan reeled back as the knife got close to his throat.

It was no substitute for her wand, but it would have to do for the moment.

Audrey pressed her advantage and took another swipe at him and Sloan continued backing away, dodging the hurried slashes of Audrey's blade. Sloan could not focus on a spell very well while avoiding Audrey's blows.

She ducked down and swung low, aiming for the outside of his leg. Audrey barely caught it, Sloan howled as wretched himself away, blood streaming down his leg.

Audrey winced, it wasn't deep enough.

As she went in for another attempt, Sloan's wand lit and knocked the knife out of Audrey's hand with a hurried spell. The knife flew so far out of her hand it hit the wall next to the main entrance. Audrey's hand stung from the force of the spell.

There was no moment of stillness or thought, Audrey never stopped moving and made a mad leap at Sloan with an enraged screech. The surprise and force of her impact took Sloan to the floor, his wand flew out of his hand and Audrey could see her own just poking out of his the sleeve, the brown wood contrasting with the hand blackened from frostbite.

Her fist connected with his cheek while he wrapped his good hand around her throat. She gasped and struggled for air while she tried to reach for her wand with one hand while grabbing the hand Sloan had at her throat with the other. Black shadows formed at the edge of her vision, not much time left.

He was smiling.

There was a puddle of water from the broken pipes next to her.

She had to focus…

Sloan's scream split the room as his hand began to burn at Audrey's throat. Audrey pushed it off her windpipe and lunged for her wand as Sloan tried to instinctively apply pressure to his new wound. Audrey could feel the bruises taking shape beneath the skin of her neck and the mild frostbite marks from her spell on Sloan that lined her throat.

A loud crack split the room as Sloan cracked her across the jaw with his fist and knocked her to the floor into a puddle from the leaking pipes above. Her head rang as it hit the floor below.

 _"YOU CRAZY BITCH!"_

He struggled to his feet, holding her wand aloft, ready to come down for a killing blow.

Sloan suddenly screamed at the splinter of ice that shot through his wrist.

Audrey's second spell blasted Sloan back into the wall so hard he bounced onto the floor below. He groaned as he subconsciously clutched his wrist.

She picked up her wand as it rolled away from Sloan and rolled him onto his back with her foot as an icicle formed from the tip of her wand. Audrey stood silently over Sloan's barely conscious body, her head tilted as the weight of considered decisions etched themselves across her brow.

"That was for my home!"

The thin icicle came down with a rapid speed into Sloan's shoulder.

" _That_ was for Selene Scoresby!"

He screamed as his eyes flew open and he tried to pull it out, but the angle was too awkward to do so effectively.

A last icicle formed and hovered over Audrey's wand as she stared down at him. Her body was cold, like the parts that made her Audrey had stepped out and away from the carnage she wanted to inflict.

Sloan looked at her with an unfathomable terror.

 _"AND THIS IS FOR HER DAUGHTER!"_

The icy spear whistled through the air and stuck itself a millimeter from his neck.

She took advantage of Sloan's shock and stomped on his face.

Sloan's nose getting crunched echoed in the silence of the room.

Audrey's voice was eerily calm when she spoke again as she stared down at Sloan, "You got to keep your life today, ruminate on that in the overnight cells."

With that, Audrey stunned him and walked towards the iced over door, not sure what she would find behind it.

* * *

Ron was not claustrophobic, but this was pushing his limit. He could not see where he was aiming his wand to cast a spell to get out, not that it would have made any difference. He pressed his hand against the wall to get an idea of how thick it was, not caring to blow himself up with curse rebound right after he and Hermione had finally stopped dancing around the romantic aspects of their relationship.

Hermione was coming home at the end of the week and by Merlin's frilly housecoat he was still going to have a nose when she got out of the portkey station.

He tapped the wall a couple of times. It was thinner then he thought, but he was still going to have to blast it open. Ron knelt down and pointed his wand at the base between the wall and the floor below. He traced his wand up to the top of the enclosed space, and angled it slightly. Once he blew it open he was going to cast a shield charm to protect himself from spell recoil.

"Reducto!"

The shell of earth and rock exploded and bounced of Ron's quickly cast shield charm, the light was momentarily blinding. Ron flung the bag of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder Audrey had given him up into the air as he ran out. It hurt to open his eyes.

Ron could hear Reeve cursing from the blocked off corridor as the room was encased in darkness. Ron lined up his shot. There was a solid thud of someone getting blasted into something solid.

It sounded painful.

The bag of darkness powder that Audrey had given him was smaller then the one she had used, Ron was not going to have to wait long for it to dissipate.

A tense silence filled the room, Ron waited quietly, listening for any sound of Reeve getting his second wind. Ron put his hand on the rock casing he had escaped to steady himself and keep him focused in the encompassing darkness.

Minutes passed.

It was quiet as the darkness dissipated.

Ron blinked, his eyes readjusting to the onslaught of light.

"Here's what I don't understand," Ron said as he glanced around for Reeve. "Why did you do this? What's your motive?"

An impediment jinx hit Ron in the chest while the vague outline of Reeve got to his feet. His body felt slow and heavy. Reeve staggered towards him, blood running down his face from a broken nose and busted lip from hitting the barrier with his face.

"That's not a story for you. I serve old laws and ancient powers, nothing you could understand."

Weird.

The jinx was quickly wearing off, Reeve was clearly too exhausted to keep track of the strength of his spell, his skin had taken on a grey pallor, and he looked like something out of a nightmare. He held up his wand, the tip lit with a bright violet light and seemed to be about to finish Ron off at close range. Ron could feel the heaviness beginning to lift off of his body.

"Sorry it has to end like this." Reeve's wand moved up to the center of Ron's chest.

The heaviness wore off Ron's limbs and he punched Reeve in the face.

Reeve staggered, but stayed upright as his spell faded away, Ron quickly disarmed him and put Reeve's wand in his pocket. There was something more going on here then just Reeve's foggy motivations.

"Tell me who you serve, Reeve."

Reeve stayed silent.

"Why do all of this? It can't have been for nothing."

Reeve's eyes moved up and to the left, his body shook violently.

Ron decided to try another angle, "You said Sloan wasn't supposed to be here. What did you mean? _Where was he supposed to be?"_

Reeve's jaw clenched.

"They'll send you to Azkaban for this unless you tell the Aurors everything you know."

It was like the mere thought had sent Reeve spiraling into unfathomable terror. Ron was not sure if it was the idea of going to prison or the person he was doing this for finding out he had said something.

"They'll protect you as a witness, if you're being threatened, nobody will be able to get to you if you cooperate." Ron kept his voice low and soothing, like he was trying to calm down one of Hagrid's pets.

"I'm not… going to Azkaban… and I don't need your protection…" Reeve chuckled as he pulled something out of his pocket. "I'm going somewhere else…" His hand shook and his eyes looked wild, his once perfectly combed hair was mussed, adding to the desperation, madness and _terror_ that rolled off him in waves.

"Reeve, what are you doing?"

"Life, death…" He breathed, "Power and weakness… It's a circle that we who strive for knowledge must go through. All things come full circle."

It was a small vial in Reeve's hand. It looked like it was full to the cork with a disgusting green potion. Ron felt his stomach drop to his toes as Reeve uncorked the bottle and a greenish yellow smoke wafted into the air and lifted it to his lips. There was a flash of knowledge of what Reeve had decided to do.

Ron fired a yellow light from his wand.

It hit Reeve's hand and knocked the vial to the floor where it shattered, the potion sending more smoke into the air as it ate away at the cobblestone floor.

Ron's hand shook as he fired a stunning spell at Reeve before he could do anything else. As Reeve fell to the floor Ron surveyed the scene, the remains of the duel were all over this room in the form of rocks, rubble and fading spells. He bound Reeve's legs and hands as an extra precaution before he made his way down the corridor to the entrance where Audrey was fighting Sloan.

He stopped for a moment and put his hand on the wall feeling his knees buckle and try to give way beneath him. Ron shook his head and took a deep breath, readying himself to press on.

Audrey might need his help, if he could get through the glacier she had put over the door.

* * *

 _ **AN:**_ Had some minor oral surgery. Got anesthesia. Best nap of my life. Also had some stressful but very mild medical problems. Lastly, I got a new job and I'm moving across the state next week. So it may be a couple of weeks before the next chapter, the last formal chapter, of which I have a chunk written and we'll have an epilogue.

I tried to make all of those combat scenes different in how everyone used their magic or unique combat, Sloane uses blasting curses and transfiguration, Audrey counters, and brings a knife to a wizards duel. Ron's got a knack for charm work and he uses it to build himself up to get step ahead of Reeve and take his shots, Reeve gets in your head and can turn the ground itself against you.


	8. Acacia

**_Chapter Eight: Acacia_**

 _Theme: Subtlety and Loyalty_

 _July 27, 1998_

The chill in the corridor seemed to be lessening as Ron jogged down it. An unintentional shiver went down his spine. Either Audrey had uncovered the door on her own power or she had been killed and her enchantment had come apart. Ron picked up the pace, hoping that was not the case.

There was a creaking noise and a thin shaft of light from the opening door at the end of the corridor, he pulled out his deluminator and quickly turned off the lights. Ron moved to the side, pressed his back against the wall and gripped his wand as the darkness overcame his senses. If it was Sloan, Ron would have to hit first and hit hard. He hid the lit tip of his wand by putting it behind his back, it would be hard to draw, but he might maintain some level of surprise.

Footsteps moved quickly through the corridor. Ron glanced at the long shadow that seemed to fill the stream of light coming from the door. The temperature dropped and Ron could see his breath rising in front of his face. He readied himself and turned his head slowly.

There was a blur of something heading towards his face that stopped short in front of his throat. He yelped.

 _"I am so sorry!"_ Audrey shrieked as she melted the icicles that hovered around her and the one at Ron's throat fell apart. "I thought you were Reeve, lurking in the dark like that!"

"I thought you were Sloan!"

Audrey raised her wand and pointed it at Ron's nose. "Answer this, what's the name of the pub Septimus drinks at?"

"The Sneezing Snitch. What were the items you gave me before we split up?"

"Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and a decoy detonator." Audrey smiled, and put her wand back in its holster. "I take it you won then?"

Ron nodded, "Reeve's alive, but he tried to …kill himself."

Audrey's eyes softened and her mouth opened slightly, "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"What about Sloan?" He didn't want to think about it right now.

"Alive when I left him," Audrey shrugged.

Okay then, not good implications but…

"Reeve said some things before he tried to…" Ron moved his hand awkwardly, "You know."

Audrey started walking down the corridor where he had left Reeve.

"Audrey?"

She turned back to face him and started walking backwards with a shrug, "Reeve's chatty."

She had a point.

"You can come along if you like, Sloan's not going anywhere."

What did she do to him?

"They're going to come down and see what all the fuss was about, and Sloan's going to be the first thing they probably find."

"I'll take the risk. Reeve knows more; Sloan was not the man with a plan, that person was Reeve. I want some answers. I don't want to get censored answers from a dog of the Ministry."

She started walking down the corridor and stopped short at an echoing commotion from the entryway behind them. Ron turned at the noise and heard Audrey shuffle back against the wall. The voices were low and rumbling and grew louder at what Ron assumed to be the discovery of Sloan.

Ron held up his wand and cast a lumos spell, and took a quick look at Audrey to make sure she wasn't thinking about doing anything crazy. Her face was eclipsed in shadow and Ron felt a shiver run down his spine at the look in her eyes. She looked like a trapped animal.

There was more noise, this time from the entrance of the corridor. Audrey fidgeted, seeming to fight with the instinct to run or face the consequences, as the voices grew louder and clearer to his ears. Audrey groaned and seemed to come to a decision as she slumped against the wall dejectedly.

She realized it the same time Ron did; fleeing down the corridor would not look good at all.

Ron clicked his deluminator in his pocket a few times and light was quickly restored to the corridor. He did not want there to be any question as to their identities, he thought as he rubbed his throat nervously.

It was a small herd of people coming down the corridor with Kingsley himself leading the charge that included Head Auror Williamson, the Head of Security Henry Dawson and a couple of other people that Ron did not know.

"Causey!" Dawson shouted as he moved his round body as fast as he was able on such short legs. "What happened?"

Audrey took in the sight of this mob of people and turned a deep crimson color and starting trying to do as she was bid.

"Well, you see, uh…

Kingsley held up his hand and Audrey stopped stuttering. "It's fine Audrey, I imagine you'll fill us in on the technical points?"

Audrey nodded.

" _AUDIE!"_ A blur of blonde hair pushed past Kingsley and Williamson with the force of an erumphant and the speed of Snape confronted with shampoo. Lucia shoved Ron into a wall for not moving quickly enough out of her way and threw her arms around Audrey's neck with a squeal.

Ron pried himself away from the wall and tried to move out of Lucia's line of fire.

"I can't believe you went and did something stupid without _me!_ I am clearly the best part of doing stupid things!"

 _"I can't breathe!"_

Lucia finally released her hold on Audrey and started dusting the dirt and dust off her shoulders while Audrey's face began to regain a more human color. "Next time you want to do something reckless and crazy, bring me along for backup and _not_ your stalker."

Merlin's saggy left-.

"I wasn't stalking her!" Ron could feel the penetrating, questioning, gaze of Dawson, Kingsley and Head Auror Williamson. "It's a long story."

"One that we could hear in more a more comfortable setting I believe." Kingsley smiled indulgently, "I believe the medics are administering first aid to Sloan, is there anyone else they need to see."

Ron nodded, "Frank Reeve is in the room at the end of the hallway, Causey and I are sure he's the mastermind."

Audrey nodded in solidarity.

"Really?" Williamson raised an eyebrow, "Reeve's smart but he never seemed like a long term planner. More of a psychologist then a chess player."

What's a psychologist?

"We're not sure what his end goal was, but he really didn't want to talk about it."

Kingsley made a thoughtful noise, "Dawson, can you have your people escort Reeve and Sloan to the overnight cells after they recieve proper medical attention until we get this sorted out?"

"Walker and Yarrow would be happy to do so. I'll meet you at the exit in a few minutes." Dawson smiled reassuringly at Audrey and turned back up the corridor to wave down his people who were standing at the entrance to the corridor. The three of them moved past the group and down the corridor to when Ron had left Sloan.

Once they had passed by Kingsley started walking up the corridor, the rest of the party following suit to go wait for Dawson in less cramped surroundings.

* * *

They were a strange group, a kind of parade of the military arm of the ministry itself as they marched up to Minister's office. Dawson was talking quietly to Audrey who had her hand on her neck to try and undo the curse remnants from when she had apparently gotten into, from what Ron had pieced together, a fistfight with Sloan. From the screaming in the room as they walked through, it appeared he had regained consciousness, though Ron was not entirely sure what had happened to him. It was enough to scare the medics called to fix him before putting him in a cell.

Ron had quickly explained to Kingsley that Sloan was working with Reeve to unexplained ends and had, as the least of his crimes, cast a killing curse at Audrey before they had separated.

Kingsley's expression grew hard and contemplative. He began to explain some of the magic behind the holding cells to Ron and quizzed him on arrest procedures while Sloan was being taken away, fighting the whole way.

Reeve had been by comparison, easier to manage.

Aside from being able to move all of his limbs, Reeve had gone quietly without speaking a word while Sloan cursed and tried to pin Ron and Audrey as enemies of the state from the carrier the medics had strapped him too. Sloan stopped yelling when Kingsley made it plain to him that he was much different from previous Ministers and would not take his word because he was a pureblood with political power and influence, when in truth he was just a butcher.

Sloan would get a day in court when the witnesses to Selene's murder came forward, Audrey had already promised to bring them to the Ministry to talk to Kingsley and the investigating Enforcers once she found the other man who would be willing to talk. Apparently, he did not talk to law enforcement if he could help it.

Audrey hunched over to avoid the stares and eye contact of the Ministry employees and international guests they passed on their way to the atrium lift. Lucia gave defiant glares and a proud toss of her head while she acted as a kind of shield for her friend and pushed her gently into the lift after Kingsley and Dawson.

It was a tight ride.

They finally stumbled out at the Minister's floor

Audrey hunched over a little further as she approached the office and her face lit like a glowing beacon of embarrassment as they walked into Kingsley's office. Percy looked up from his papers appearing very confused.

"Hey Percy!" Lucia waved excitedly, "Still going to Piper's on Saturday? We are!"

Audrey's eyes moved up towards the ceiling as if she were wishing for the quickest and most sudden death imaginable.

Ron struggled quietly with sympathy and the need to laugh.

Percy ignored Lucia and stood up from his chair, "Minister Shacklebolt, you have a guest waiting for you in your office. Your one thirty meeting."

Audrey stepped behind Kingsley, who to Ron's notice, was the tallest person in her immediate vicinity.

Kingsley nodded, "Ah, thank you Percy, was he waiting long?"

"He was five minutes late."

"Not long then." Kingsley smiled sagely and opened the door, greeting his guest and apologizing for being late before motioning the group inside.

Lucia moved forward but stopped short when Dawson put his hand on her shoulder. "Selwyn, wait out here."

"What?"

"You weren't there, it's a rare occurrence that your not in trouble for something, I know."

Lucia huffed, "Fine," she turned her attention to Audrey, "if they arrest you for anything, Audrey, I'll get you a barrister. Then I'll break you out of Azkaban."

"Thanks, Lucia. I'll keep that in mind," Audrey said quietly as Dawson escorted her into the Minister's office.

Ron followed with a quick glance at Lucia's determined expression, like she would inflict various forms of suffering upon anyone who got between her and Audrey's freedom.

And that she was probably going to stun Percy and listen at the door in case she had to steal Audrey away in a hurry.

Dawson poked his head out of Kingsly's Lucia after he nudged Audrey into the office, "Selwyn, I have a job for you. Go help Isra down in the atrium, it's crowded down there and I had to borrow her little helpers. She's at the main security desk."

Lucia sighed dejectly and made her way out the door.

"In her defense, she's good at her job." Dawson said as he turned to face a disapproving Williamson.

Ron reached over to close the door, making sure not to close the door entirely. He turned his back to the door, rationalizing his actions by noting that Kingsley knew spells to block out noise, trusted his direct staff to keep what they heard in the office private, and lastly could have the door closed at any point.

Dawson and Williamson were talking, Dawson sitting on a small wooden stool he had tranfigured out of a pen for himself while Williamson sat on a wooden chair he had pulled out of the air. Kingsley was sitting quietly behind his desk in a high comfortable, but formal looking chair that he had, according to a dinner conversation with Ron's parents, he had brought from home merely because it was comfortable.

Audrey was standing behind a high backed red chair on the other side of Kingsley's desk talking in hurried, rushed whispers to the man sitting in it, who nodded occasionally when Audrey became particularly fussed about a point.

It was odd to see Lowell in the Minister's office, a bit like seeing a dragon in a dress.

"Ah," Lowell muttered, Ron strained to hear what was being said without giving himself away. "I was wondering what you were up to. Should have brought me along, I've been grading papers all day. You want a chair?"

"Not really, I've been sitting most of the day." Audrey kept her place behind Lowell's chair as if to guard him from unseen enemies. "Why are you here?"

"Business."

Ron made himself comfortable leaning against the wall.

Kingsley looked at Lowell, "If you want to wait outside with my support staff-"

"I'm quite comfortable where I am actually, besides if your weedy stuffed shirt out there asks me about tea for the fourth time I may turn him into a teacup." He glanced over at Ron, while Audrey hissed his name under her breath as a warning. "No offense."

"None taken."

Kingsley took in the room and sighed, "Ron, can you start explaining?"

Ron nodded, "Well, I guess it started a few weeks ago…"

He started to explain the whole story, how Frank Reeve was very focused on Lowell as a kind of grand mastermind with Audrey as his too loyal foot soldier. How Reeve had tried to frame Audrey as abusing her position to get into the Department of Mysteries on Lowell's behalf, his suspicions that Reeve was too nosy and focused on this one thing. The investigation in Diagon Alley where he had run afoul Audrey and began to have real doubts about this whole mess and decided to see if there was evidence to clear her name.

There were nods and murmurs from everyone else in the room. Lowell looked between Ron and Audrey before whispering something to Audrey with a furrowed brow. Audrey mumbled a couple of clipped words back before gripping the back of his chair tightly.

Ron continued on with how a ragtag group had planned to go check out the Department of Mysteries, only for Harry to get snatched away and for Sahirah Newsly to become a swooning damsel of distraction when Reeve had gone on ahead. Audrey setting a trap for her pursuers that Ron just happened to stumble into before they confronted the simakr- simya- dammit.

"Sim-u-la-crum," Audrey said patiently before Ron could bite off his tongue with the effort of pronunciation. "They're magically created copies of people. Take some hair or something from the person you want to replicate, a wooden puppet and spellfocus in its chest and some really advanced spellcraft you can make whoever you want."

Dawson sprung to attention. "The day it looked like you had left your post, you sounded different, quieter, much more introverted then usual."

Audrey's fingers tapped rapidly on the top of her teacher's chair, "Reeve went to school with me, same house, same year. We weren't friends, but he thought he knew me well enough to make a simulacrum of me based on his memories from when we were at Hogwarts."

Dawson nodded slowly, "Anything else we should know about these… simulacrum?"

"Well, it's less effective then the polyjuice potion in a way, simulacrum cannot wander far from their creator. Good tool if you're working by yourself, and it can take less time to make one then brew a polyjuice potion."

"So I can't use one to go to my wife's family reunion for me?"

"No."

Lowell chuckled, "That explains why you wanted to go through Swain's replication encyclopedias. Nice work."

Kingsley motioned for the room to come back to order, "Go ahead and finish your report, Ron."

Ron nodded, and picked up where he left off stating that Audrey was looking for Sloan to confront him about eyewitness testimony to murdering Selene Scoresby, and how she told him simulacrum can't be far from their creator. How they planned to team up and get some definite answers, and forming a plan that would keep Reeve trusting for a little longer only to find out he was working with Sloan to unknown ends when they tried to put their plan into effect.

Williamson stepped in, "Who fought who?"

"Audrey helped drive them into different rooms to weaken their defenses, she wanted Sloan and made sure I was able to go after Reeve."

Williamson looked at Audrey with a hard expression, "What you did to Sloan, no matter his supposed crimes, was not necessary."

"What did she do?" Ron asked, curiosity overcoming his nerves at being in such a meeting.

Williamson's expression became like stone, "She impaled him to the floor with icicles. We found him stunned too, so he'd suffer."

Lowell whipped around in his chair to look at his apprentice, "I taught you better then to torture somebody when it's not warranted!"

Audrey whispered something quickly to Lowell who quickly grew red faced and abashed before turning her attention back to the rest of the room. "Sloan saw fit to blast Selene Scoresby's head off in front of witnesses including her own daughter, then Magical Law Enforcement and the Aurors pushed her down a list. Whatever you say I did to him I promise you was more then fair seeing as he's still alive."

 _"Audrey,"_ Lowell whispered trying to get her to simmer down.

Williamson looked thunderstruck before his expression contorted into an unfathomable rage. "We don't solve cold cases. We catch dark wizards and protect the public from current threats, that's our job and we do it well."

There was a humorless laugh from Lowell's chair. "I don't remember your people coming to protect anybody at any point during the last few months. If you're trying to restore the good name of the Auror department after half your forces bent knee to the Death Eaters by arresting Muggle-borns during the war, try harder. In the world's eyes, you're just a hypocrite who knows what to say to try and make everything look okay."

Williamson got out of his chair and pulled out his wand.

Audrey followed suit.

Ron rushed forward to get between them.

Dawson quickly stepped in front of Williamson.

Kingsley rose to his feet as well, "That is enough!" His voice was deep and echoed through the room with a projected confidence that caused Williamson and Audrey to freeze with their wands in their hands. "We are not here today to drag up old grievances, either we stand as a united front to lead the rest of our nation to peace or we come apart now, and those who come after us will never know what that word means."

He turned to face Williamson, "Put your wand away, if you want to start making reparations for the actions of the Aurors during the war, perhaps you could begin by listening to the grievances of those people most hurt by the actions of your department." Kingsley paused, "I appointed you to lead the Aurors because I believe, and still do, that you are the most able to complete our major objective and restore our good name with the public."

Williamson looked suitably embarrassed.

"As for you Audrey," Kingsley turned his attention to Audrey who looked as if she were debating hiding behind Lowell or meeting Kingsley's calm gaze. She settled for the latter. "Vigilantism does not bring justice, revenge and hatred will not bring you peace. I know you've suffered and you have yet to voice the extent of it, but I ask you to put your trust in me and have patience with the Ministry to right these wrongs inflicted on your communities for just a little longer. Sloan will be investigated, tried through our courts and the justice system will decide how to handle him."

Lastly, he gave a stern look to Lowell, "Watch yourself, say the wrong thing to the wrong people and you could get hurt. What good would that be for your people?"

Lowell looked thoughtful and leaned back in his chair.

Williamson and Audrey gave each other one final measured glare before putting their wands away and moving to their original positions, Williamson to his chair, Audrey standing behind Lowell like a loyal hound.

Ron stepped forward closer to Kingsley's desk to try and get everyone back on topic to try and defuse the tension in the room. "Here's the problem," Ron looked from Williamson to Dawson, Kingsley, Audrey and Lowell in turn, "we don't know who Reeve and Sloan were working for. The only thing we really know is that Reeve was the mastermind of sorts and Sloan was not supposed to be down in the Department of Mysteries."

There was a gasp from Dawson.

Williamson looked stoic and contemplative.

"Perhaps they were bought off?" Dawson suggested as he bore the look of a man whose general understanding of conspiracies was far above his head.

"Wouldn't take much," Williamson stated firmly. "The Sloan family lost a lot of money in bad investments over the years, they were in debt to a lot of people. Sloan was always a bit off kilter, but he was very effective as an Enforcer. He may have been doing things on the side if he was trying to pay it back, never took much to get him to do something, the man likes money."

 _And murder,_ Ron added quietly.

"Ah," Lowell nodded sagely and leaned back in his chair, "at least some ministry officials can still bought for less then ten sickle whore."

Ron snorted while Audrey put her hand over her mouth and focused on a spot on the wall behind Kingsley's desk.

Kingsley smiled grimly, "Clearly, Sloan and Reeve have a lot of explaining to do. Do either of you know why they were down in the Department of Mysteries?" His gaze shifted between Ron and Audrey.

Ron shook his head, "That's all I know." He just knew what he told everyone in the room. He looked over at Audrey and Lowell.

"I know as much as you do." Audrey said calmly.

Lowell nodded in agreement, "I'm just here to get some papers signed."

Ron had doubts about that but he was too tired to press the issue.

Kingsley drummed his fingers on the desk for a few moments while he looked at Lowell. "Papers? Oh, right, the guardianship papers."

"I need a formal, official witness for the alterations to my will also." He smiled in a way that made him look less harmless then Ron believed he was. "Just in case I fall over dead from the stress of childrearing."

Audrey heaved a put-upon sigh.

Merlin's beard, Lowell had to be exhausting to deal with on a daily basis.

"Oh," Dawson started as he pulled some files out of his pocket. They were unwrinkled from the extension charm. "I found these in the library earlier, someone left them out and I'm not entirely sure where they go."

Kingsley tapped the corner of his desk while he started talking to Williamson about interrogation methods and taking a few notes.

Ron winced; they had left the files about Audrey and Lowell out when they left the library. It had been nice being off her shit list. Wait, he could say Harry did it. It was definitely Harry's fault, he had run off to do something heroic like save a colony of puffskins when he was supposed to return the files.

Brilliant.

Dawson went to put them on Kingsley's desk, Audrey plucked them up before Kingsley could even reach out to have a look and scampered back to stand behind Lowell's chair. Lowell turned and gave Audrey a questioning look before putting in his two knuts about how the prison system and Azkaban itself should be run after the war.

Audrey looked at her file papers closely, her expression cold and difficult to read. Ron glanced over as she flipped through the pages and turned his attention back to Williamson and Kingsley who were continuing their discussion on how best to interrogate and handle Sloan and Reeve.

Ron knew what his role in the trial was going to be and glanced back at Audrey who was hunched over the file and biting at her thumb nervously. No, that wasn't entirely nerves. It was a kind of intense bone chilling focus. Her thumb began to bleed as Audrey flipped quickly through the pages again, leaving small spots from her bleeding thumb on each page before snapping the file closed and walking three steps to Kingsley's desk before slamming the file down with a loud thump. Ron noticed the inkbottle Kingsley was using froze on impact.

"You got into my file?" Audrey stated, her voice blank as it echoed coldly through the room. Lowell summoned Audrey's file off the Minister's desk and opened it for a better look while Audrey stared down the Minister of Magic.

"Heh, I forgot how scruffy you looked." Lowell took the picture of school aged Audrey out of the folder and examined it closely. "I thought you were a boy when I first met you."

Audrey ignored the bait and stared at Kingsley coldly as Lowell pocketed the picture. "Why does the Ministry still have all of this?" Her voice was quiet, but steady. "The list of my supposed war crimes, and my blood status were supposed to be formally cleared by the Committee of War Crime Clemency."

Ron winced,

"I thought we were done prosecuting mudbloods?"

Ron and the rest of the room flinched.

Audrey inhaled through her nose loudly as if trying to make herself larger. "My whole life is on display for when I step out of line? Everything I did to stay alive can be pulled out as evidence against me if the Ministry decides I'm a problem again? That's not any different from the fascists we just put out of power."

The room was silent, Kingsley tried to begin to speak but Audrey slammed her fist onto Kingsley's desk with such force the frozen inkbottle shook before he could even begin.

"Because this file is still active, I can't get into Gringotts, neither can anyone else who was prosecuted by the previous administration unless they have connections."

Ron winced, Bill and Kingsley had pulled some strings to get Harry access to his vault and to open accounts for him and Hermione. It took effort, the goblins were still angry with them for breaking into Gringotts and escaping on a dragon. The three of them were closely watched whenever they went _near_ the bank.

Ron realized her better double-check Hermione's file, just in case she was stuck in backlog too.

"We're living off goodwill and credit," Lowell said with the detached air of an elder statesman. "I've called in all of my favors so we don't end up on the streets, and I have many. I could go on like this patiently if I didn't have a boy under my care who is about to start at Hogwarts, a niece who is trying to get on her feet after abandoning her family of Voldemort," everyone else in the room winced, "sympathizers and a girl who thinks she can do everything on her own." Lowell looked at Audrey sternly over the rims of his glasses.

"Other survivors have not been as lucky and they're getting picked up by radical political groups like Muggle-borns for Reformation because their backgrounds are being flagged in clearance and security checks." Audrey gave Lowell a grave look to match the one he was giving her.

"The Reformation is only picking up steam because Silvern's got charisma," Lowell added. "Not because his ideas have long term sustainability."

"If they think he can lead them to true equality he'll be around as long as he can open his mouth." Audrey fired back before putting her hand on her cheek where a bruise had darkened on her jaw. She noticed the eyes of the room upon her, causing her to promptly turn red as she looked at the empty wall ahead of her.

The room was quiet.

"If you want my opinion Kingsley," Lowell started, his voice echoing through the room. "You're going to lose a lot of Muggle-borns no matter what you do. They're to scared and untrusting after being in Azkaban for a year, those kids who got caught early may never see the Ministry the way you need it seen after the war."

"What makes you such an expert?" Williamson scoffed, "You run a bookshop."

Lowell smiled as if he were indulging a much stupider person. "Well, young man, this was my third war. They tend to end with a kind of social revolution of sorts if you ever cared to pick up a book for reading instead of using it for kindling."

Third war? Ron did some thinking back to the history of magic lessons where he could not sleep for some reason. The war against Grindelwald that must have been the first war he lived through, lots of crazy stuff after that if Ron remembered correctly.

Kingsley looked thoughtful, "How much power has the Reformation accumulated in Diagon Alley?"

"Audrey?" Lowell prompted.

"That meeting I went to was seating a full house in the Dragonfly Café, but that was a couple months ago who knows how many people saw what I did or failed too in that time."

"What did you think of Silvern?" Kingsley asked, as he folded his hands on his desk.

Audrey paused, her lips thinned as she fished for the right words. "I think Silvern is just a Death Eater turned in the other direction, he and I want the same laws abolished and our records cleared, but I will not follow a man who would turn around and advocate torture for people who served under You-Know-" She stopped, _"V-Voldemort's_ Ministry and advocates for the crushing of purebloods in the way Muggle-borns were.I think we've seen enough of that."

Kingsley smiled, "We need to hear more from our communities, I've been thinking about a kind of council system with representatives from our wizarding communities like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. We need to hear from them directly what they need to help rebuild. Now that many people who were in hiding have returned home, the timing seems right to try and implement it, and I would like to start with Diagon Alley."

Lowell and Audrey exchanged a look before turning their attention back to Kingsley.

Lowell spoke first, "It's not a bad idea, we've been hit pretty hard during and after the war-"

"-But we will not sit on your council," Audrey finished.

Kingsley looked like this may not be the end of that discussion, but seemed willing to put it aside for the moment.

"Can you recommend us anyone else who knows the people, who also lives and works in the community if you will not do it yourselves?"

Audrey and Lowell exchanged another look that spoke of the immense trust between them. Ron immediately felt like this was a look that spoke of problems for somebody.

" _Scully,"_ They said in unison without missing a beat.

"He knows everybody and the Diagon Alley meetings are run out of his pub. He'll need convincing but he could handle it." Lowell smiled like a self-satisfied cat.

Kingsley nodded sagely while Williamson looked like he was having an unpleasant recollection.

Audrey snickered as she turned back to face Lowell, "He's not gonna like this."

No, Ron did not think he would.

Lowell blinked, "We never recommended him! If he cancels my tab, there's going to be some problems!"

"Yeah, because you drink like a fish," Audrey mumbled.

Ron chuckled as he walked back towards the door.

"I didn't catch that, Aud. What did you say?"

"Just that you shouldn't pin that suggestion on his girlfriend."

"You know me so well."

Ron checked his pocket watch; it was about one in the afternoon. It was getting suffocating in the office and Ron intended to be the first person out when they were dismissed. His stomach rumbled, perhaps he would help him slip down to the cafeteria for some food from a sympathetic house elf.

As Lowell and Audrey disintegrated into bickering about magical research methodology that flew completely over Ron's head, Williamson and Dawson were talking to Kingsley about staffing concerns and possibly transferring some more willing participants from the security department to the Aurors department.

Ron was not sure he could call this case a success, they still did not have a motive for Reeve and Sloan and who they were really working for, but he had helped bring a murderer to justice and helped clear a young woman's name. He felt a bit like the hero in a mystery novel in that regard.

Audrey threw her hands up in defeat as Lowell started talking to Williamson about his time as an Auror. Audrey moved to stand next to Ron, looking like she wanted to say something but was having a hard time trying to start. She sputtered a couple of times before seemingly giving up for the moment. Ron guessed it was a thank you, and nodded in acknowledgement of her efforts. She seemed to understand that he got the message.

He reached for the door handle to try and slip out to try and rescue Harry from whatever dignitary had cornered him. Only to be foiled by a hurried kind of commotion outside in the clerk's office, a woman talking and a crying baby. Ron turned his head to hear better while the older men in the room continued talking.

"Yes, yes I know, Percy. Papers for meetings and appointments, it was a bit unexpected to be here right now. Here, just hold the baby. You have a lot of siblings so I trust you not to drop her!"

"What-!"

"Is this anyway to treat your old prefect? You remember who recommended you for Head Boy?"

 _"When did you-"_

"She likes to rocked!"

The door swung open and bounced off the wall, barely missing Ron's nose in the process. It was a slight woman in her mid-twenties with shoulder length blonde hair, wearing glasses and a blue knee length dress. She looked exhausted.

"Kingsley, what's good?"

Kingsley blinked a couple of times while Ron and Audrey peered out the open door to watch Percy stare at this woman in open mouth shock at her brazenness while holding a crying, bundled infant.

Audrey started to laugh, she laughed harder when Percy made eye contact with her and Ron, he looked incredibly confused as to what exactly transpired in the last few moments. He accepted his new reality when the baby started full on wail and he started to rock her and make soothing noises.

He was turning into mum.

"Ron, this is Auror Dawn Hopper."

"Please call me Dawn," She reached out to shake Ron's hand. She was shorter then Ron expected, not even coming up to Ron's shoulder. "You're very tall, this will work great, I need someone to get things on high shelves for me. My summoning charms are laughable."

Ron chuckled; Dawn was a clearly full of energy even with a newborn.

"Now, Kingsley and McGonagall say you play a good game of chess."

"I hope so."

"Great, I need someone new to play with. Kingsley's good but he's got a shit poker face." She turned to look coyly at Kingsley. "How are you working in politics again?"

Kingsley laughed drily.

Dawson looked at her incredulously, "What about me Dawn?"

"I check you five moves in. I just like to see how deep of a hole you can put yourself in before I say anything." She shrugged and smiled smugly. "Sorry, Henry."

Audrey snorted and tried to keep her snickering to a minimum.

"So much love I feel from my staff." Dawson gave Audrey a look that Ron would equivocate with an exasperated parent. "Does anyone else's staff laugh at them like this?"

"Now, Ron, how's you're dueling?" Dawn changed the subject to try and spare Dawson's pride a bit.

"Better then Upton's."

"That's a low bar from what I've heard."

"He's pretty good, his big feet get in the way a bit." Audrey said from the spot by the door where she was leaning against the wall. "I can tell where he's going to fire his shots."

Lowell was glowing with a kind of paternal pride at his protégée.

"Spoken like a true technician." Dawn grinned and peered back out the door to check on her baby before turning back to Ron. "We'll work on that, I'll find someone for you to practice with until I'm cleared for active duty but I will come supervise and teach you some of my tricks. Then I get to beat the snot out of you."

Ron had no doubts she would.

"Thanks for holding him for me Kingsley, I really didn't want McGrew to have him."

"Not a problem Dawn," Kingsley smiled and looked at Ron. "McGrew's more combat focused. He's also kind of dim. He would have bored you to tears."

Lowell rolled his eyes and nodded in agreement. "He thought Ulysses Umber was a famous modern poet, he's actually a noted strategist from the sixteenth century who had the eloquence of a fish." He looked at Audrey sternly, "You're supposed to save me from talking to complete dullards."

Audrey shrugged and turned her head to face him. She had been watching the goings on out in the support staff office. "Sorry, boss. I was busy."

"Doing what?"

 _Talking to Percy._

"Researching."

 _Flirting._

"Researching what?"

 _Probably Percy's paperwork procedures._

"Cauldron bottom thickness."

 _Ugh…_

Lowell groaned, "Is a cauldron really that important?"

 _It'll be important to mum!_

Ron had suppressed his gag reflex enough today. It was time to go somewhere else where there was the potential for food.

Kingsley was making a show out of sorting some of his trial paperwork by holding it in front of his face. Ron got the idea that Kingsley knew more about that sidestepping flirtation then he really cared to tell and found it deeply entertaining.

Dawson sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I need to go make sure Isra hasn't killed Walker while I was away. Causey, when you're done here go find Oddball and escourt him back to his post before he either breaks down from seeing so many people or causes an international incident. Again."

Again? Ron made a note not to hang around with the security department.

"I'll start heading down now." Audrey smiled a bit to widely, and looked very mischievous as she slipped out the door, and into the office, exchanging a few quick words with Percy who was telling her that he had a book she might want to read while the baby's screams subsided.

Ron and Dawn talked for a few more minutes on various subjects related to war strategy and chess, Dawn seemed to want to hear some stories about his time during the war, saying that she had missed a lot by being pregnant and going into hiding during the war and that she wanted a better idea of what they were going to be dealing with. Dawn told him she would love to take him out to lunch one day this week so they could talk and Ron could ask her whatever questions he wanted. They shook hands and Dawn rushed out to pick up her daughter to take her to a doctor's appointment.

Ron stepped out the door after Dawn as she said a quick goodbye to his brother and thanked him for babysitting before jogging out the door.

Percy and Ron looked at each other for a moment; Ron decided to ask him about how he knew Dawn later. Percy had quickly gone back to trying to trying to do his paperwork now that the commotion had subsided.

Ron closed the door to the Minister's Support Staff office behind him and was met with Audrey by the security desk where she seemed to be waiting for someone while she looked through the drawers. Ron assumed she was waiting for Lowell and barely got a couple of steps before she spoke.

"Tell me something, Ron, is warring really how you want to spend the rest of your life?" Ron turned to look at her as Audrey stood up and faced him soundlessly like a ghost. "Or is it what you think is expected of you after everything?"

Ron's mouth fell open for a moment before he collected himself. "What do you mean?"

"Was becoming an Auror a long term idea or something you have fallen into for the moment until things are back to normal?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Audrey shrugged, "I'm just curious, you seem to… soft in a way to spend your life running down dark wizards."

Ron's face and ears took a hue similar to his hair.

"Maybe that wasn't the right word." Audrey corrected quietly as she folded her arms in front of her and leaned her shoulder against the wall. "You're good at this, I'm just not sure you'll stay on after all the Death Eaters are in Azkaban."

"Why don't you get out of magical research and join the Aurors with that attitude?" Ron spat, "Get paid for your vigilante tendencies."

Audrey's eyes narrowed, as she put her hand over her chest with a wince. "My fighting days are over, I've done my part for the war effort and I'm going home to rebuild my community. There's not enough of that going on I think." She walked past him soundlessly like a ghost and stopped at the end of the hallway in front of the door. "Go fight for glory, Gryffindor, I don't think it's going to make you happy in the long term to pursue revenge for what happened to your brother."

Ron sputtered.

Her tone softened, "Be careful, Ron. I've lived the life you're pursuing and it's not for kind souls." She moved towards the lift.

"Wait, I have one more question."

Audrey stopped short and turned to face him, "What is it?"

"You've invented tracking spells, the Aurors and Enforcers could use them."

Audrey's lips tightened into a thin line. "God, you are nosy." She sighed exasperatedly, "If I have, why would I want to give anyone access to my grimoire?"

"Your what?"

"My spellbook."

Ron thought quickly, what do Ravenclaws like? What would a magic obsessed Ravenclaw graduate like?

"What if I taught you something in exchange?"

Audrey blinked and her mouth untightened as she smiled coyly. "Really? What would you have to teach me?"

"Something that is not in your spellbook, in exchange you teach me one of your tracking spells."

Audrey looked thoughtful; "You get one chance and you know where to find me when you're ready."

Lowell stepped out of the office and hobbled towards Audrey on his cane.

"Audrey, let's go find that Oddball fellow. Is he as weird as they say?" When he made it to her side, Lowell pointed his cane at Ron with a malicious grin. "Weasley, I'll see you in class tomorrow morning, you're going to sit up front because I can't stand Fitz's weak stomach."

Ron was not sure he would survive the class.

Audrey flashed Ron a quick smile as she and Lowell started walking to the lift. Lowell looked at Ron suspiciously as they stepped inside the lift and disappeared from sight as the grate closed with creaks and groans that echoed through the corridor.

Whatever Ron was going to bring her had better be impressive, but at the same time, it somehow felt a bit like a test…

* * *

"That," Septimus started, "was reckless, dangerous and stupid." He slammed the door to his office and walked towards his desk, leaning on his cane for support.

"I'm sorry," Audrey said for the second time in the last few minutes. "What was I supposed to do? Let Sloan walk free after seeing the memory of what he did to Serena's mother?"

Septimus stopped short in front of his desk and sighed. He would not have been able to let that go if Fowler had given him the memory instead of Audrey. "No, but if it had been me, I would have brought help, not run down to handle it on my own." He tapped his bad leg with his cane for emphasis.

Audrey nodded quietly.

"Tell me about the memory room."

"I found Cole's memory vial, he's the only one to have come forward so far. I managed to blur out any of our faces that appeared in it."

The girl would have been a fantastic Auror if she had ever wanted to walk down that path. Perhaps an Unspeakable if she wanted to pursue Magical Research through more formal means, and live a more conventional life. The Ministry's loss was Septimus's gain really.

"And you still think that you can erase your heroics from history itself?"

"I have to try. I want a quiet life, a normal life where I'm not dragged about as a display of valor and treated like someone I'm not." Audrey rocked back and forth on her heels nervously. "That war turned me into someone I don't like, I want to forget that person and just be Audrey again." She paused, "History will know I existed, history will just never know my face."

Well, much to her credit, the girl was never a glory hound. Too shy to put herself in front of a camera or a crowd for all to see, Septimus respected that. Others would just find it strange.

"So, what is it you really wanted to talk about, Audrey?"

"The Book of the Dead."

Septimus felt his face grow pale. "What about it?"

"I've been doing some reading, about old runes and sealing spells and-" Audrey paused, her eyes wide and her hands fidgeting in pure stress as she looked around his office. "I wasn't supposed to be able to seal it alone."

"No, you weren't."

"People _died_ trying to do what I did, I don't know why I'm alive."

Septimus stole a glance at the cut on Audrey's left hand as Audrey started tracing the main part of the scar thoughtfully; the dark strands from the scar from the residual magic seemed to have stopped spreading. He had a few theories, though Audrey seemed oblivious to his thinking as she was swept up into thoughts of her own. She lived in her head for the most part, to a point that it could be very dangerous. Septimus had a theory as to why the book had not killed her, but it was not going to be one to where he could tell Audrey and not expect her to live with the guilt and burden of it. Other warlocks who sealed away powerful magical items and secrets had not used their own blood to do so; blood was a… very binding material. He had to get her off this train of thought.

Septimus smiled while his head whirred in conflicted thought, "I think you survived by a combination of sheer strength of will, innate magical power and pure dumb luck. That's all I can really say about it because I believe it."

Audrey looked up at him, confusion evident in her pale eyes.

"You know why my other six apprentices didn't last longer then six months? They had a hell of a lot less gumption then you."

"They also had a problem with your illegal dealings and vaguely criminal activities," Audrey retorted dryly.

Completely true. Cutter had the spinal density of a limp noodle and ran out of the shop screaming into the night. Ulther had a nervous breakdown the first time they went to Knockturn Alley and tried to turn Septimus in for the mummified monkey paws he was holding for a friend. Audrey never screamed over what she found in the shop and Septimus had to pull her away from the various objects they found in Knockturn Alley that were supposedly affiliated with ancient curses in Egypt. Septimus had caught her trying to haggle for a hand of glory an hour into the first trip.

"Oh, could you go check in on Swain down in Knockturn for me tonight? He's got something for me and you really shouldn't open the box."

"What did he get you this time?"

Septimus smiled ominously, "If we get found out, I don't want you going to Azkaban with me."

"Deal." Audrey said quickly as she turned for the door to leave the office.

"One more question," her voice dropped to a pitch just above a whisper, "is the book safe wherever you're keeping it."

"What do you-"

"Please don't lie to me, Septimus. I know you are far to smart to let something like that fall into the Ministry's hands if you could help it."

She was right. Septimus had no problem starting a rumor that he had the book confiscated by an Department of Mysteries official after the atrium battle, which was half true. The book that was taken from him had been a very convincing _copy_ of a very dangerous artifact. A rumor that clearly someone believed when Septimus stated the book's supposed location loudly in a corridor when he first arrived at the Ministry to draw out potential spies.

The real Book of the Dead was in a locked chest in his room at the Leaky Cauldron, under powerful protection spells until the shop was rebuilt and he could move it somewhere else.

Septimus sighed, "It's safe."

Audrey heaved a sigh of relief.

After everything she had gone through, she deserved as normal a life as she could possibly manage. Septimus was not going to burden her with things that would interfere with that. It was the highest act of love he could offer his surrogate daughter.

"I have one last piece of advice."

Audrey looked up at him, awaiting his latest bit of magical wisdom.

"Boys are trouble, don't get involved with boys."

Audrey chuckled. "I will do my best."

As Audrey closed the door behind her to go deal with the Oddball situation in the atrium Septimus was fully alone with his thoughts.

"She deserved better…" He whispered. "Better than the hell I've put her through." His hand moved up to rub his eyes. Septimus took a deep breath as his glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose. "Audrey deserves a normal life. I can keep her safe. She does not deserve this burden. She doesn't have to know."

Denial was always an easy route.

The Seven had a new purpose. It was time to shake the old allies awake and bring some new ones into the fold. Now that he knew there were more people after the book, he could take proper precautions. Audrey was his daughter in every way but blood; Septimus would ensure her a safe, normal and happy life or die trying.

Lucia and what remained of the Seven would continue to follow him without question; Audrey would not have to know she was working in regards to her own protection if he was careful about it. The Lotus in Knockturn Alley was said to be trustworthy, a few tests would be needed to ensure this after the Nolan incident, and Septimus did need more ears in shady places. That goblin from the bank, Raguk may help with incentive. Scully would help, he thought highly of Audrey and the Sneezing Snitch was a wretched hive of devious connections.

Septimus gave a sigh of relief as he sat down in his chair and began going through the papers he had to grade. Most people involved in magical research never married, too distracting, and Audrey, to his eyes, seemed to like adventure a bit to much, appearing to reckless and driven to settle down.

He would need to work quickly; the Seven and their allies, old and new, must be ready just in case.

The Book of the Dead… What great powers and old magic slept within its pages?

* * *

A/N: We'll have a short epilogue posted next week, it just needs editing and its not too long. I'll explain the chapter titles in the author's note there and break down that chess metaphor that showed up a couple of times in the story here.

Pawns: Potential of the everyman to rise and do something great or attain power.

Rook: The stalwart defenders; henchmen; security.

King: Stays back and has subordinates do the dirty work.

Queen: Has a lot of power on the board, but cannot rise to a higher position.

Bishop: Hold power behind the scenes, not really noticed.

Knight: A unique skill set that sets them apart and allows frequent use.


	9. Yew

_**Epilogue: Yew**_

 _Theme: Life and Death_

 _August 2, 1998_

Audrey was convinced that Molly was the most dangerous Weasley. The round, sweet face and motherly air gave her an air and look of harmlessness that people would find comforting, while her cooking of delicious foods and various desserts may have merely an act to suppress her bloodlust. Audrey's grandmother had not raised a fool.

It was easier to focus her attentions on the inside of the Burrow, as it was the strangest looking house Audrey had seen, let alone stepped into. It was clearly built and held together by magic. Yes, it was easier to focus on the topsy-turvy construction and various knick-knacks within then the fact Molly Weasley had stopped cooking for the moment and was now walking over to her. Molly Weasley's soft arms were wide in a welcoming gesture.

This woman had killed Bellatrix Lestrange and when Audrey thought about it, if she was not busy raising seven children she probably could have taken care of Voldemort singlehanded during the first war.

Molly Weasley was now hugging her and Audrey felt the kind of primal terror she had not felt in months.

"We're so glad you both could make it," Molly patted Audrey on the shoulder as she pulled away and moved over to hug Lucia who leaned down to put her arms around her quite happily. Lucia had grown up with a very unaffectionate family. "Dinner will be on the table in an hour, in the meantime, please make yourselves at home."

"Oh, we brought you some wine," Lucia said as Molly Weasley let go of the tall blonde woman.

More of a peace offering, in Audrey's opinion, she did not care to end up on this woman's hit list.

"With my uncle's apologies that he couldn't make it. Something came up." Lucia was such a well-mannered charmer when she wanted to be. Audrey pulled the two wine bottles out of her bag with a smile and gave them to Arthur who thanked them both while telling them it was not necessary while Lucia insisted that it was leaving Audrey to bob her head in agreement. Lucia was the better talker of the two.

More casual chitchat about how work was going was exchanged before Lucia and Audrey were able to extract themselves as more people arrived. There were apparently a lot of family friends coming and Molly told them that mostly everyone was waiting in the living room until she was finished cooking. Lucia and Audrey thanked them both again for the invitation and walking into the living room while admiring the various magical items in the home. Audrey was particularly taken with a clock that showed where each member of the Weasley family was at a given time.

Perhaps the option for prison was added after the twins had revealed the depths of their penchant for mischief.

Audrey and Lucia stayed close together while they took in the flaming sea of red heads in the living room. Audrey's stomach churned and flipped like she was on a dinghy in the middle of the ocean. She scanned the crowd hoping she would and wouldn't see Percy.

Morgana's grimoire, she felt like a schoolgirl!

She made Lucia swear not to leave her alone before they arrived at the house, Audrey hated crowds and disliked the attention of strangers, and it made her uncomfortable. Even though her grades recommended her for a Ministry career, Audrey knew she did not have the personality for it. She liked more autonomy in her work.

Audrey's breath caught in her throat.

Percy was talking to a heavily scarred man and the most beautiful woman Audrey had ever seen. Her guts clenched in horror as she ran her fingers through her too short hair, she had hacked it all off when she went on the run almost a year ago. That woman's was so blonde and unearthly and Audrey could not compete with that! She looked familiar too…

"Is that the Veela girl from the Triwizard Tournament?" Lucia asked incredulously from where she was standing next to Audrey.

That just made her nerves worse!

She was just so _flawless_ looking.

Audrey felt like a bog creature by comparison and started playing with the sleeves of her robes feeling worse about her ill-fitting clothes. The stress and physicality of being on the run for ten months had taken a physical toll she was not sure she would recover from.

Merlin's beard, it seemed she was funny too.

There was clearly no justice in this world.

The scarred man put his arm around the beautiful woman's waist and she gave him a glowing smile. Audrey felt herself relax slightly. Long-term relationship.

Audrey heaved a sigh of relief as she shuffled her feet nervously while she looked away and took in the room. The living room was packed full of red heads, aside from the unmistakable ink black hair of Harry Potter who was on his way outside with Ginny Weasley. Not blatantly, it had kind of a sneaking edge to it that made Audrey cover her mouth and look somewhere else as Ginny exchanged a few words with Ron while Harry crept out the back door while he was distracted.

George was showing a goblet to a burly looking, redheaded man with a lot of burn scars on his arms.

She ran her fingers over the brass buttons of her robes and covered them in frost to calm her nerves while she took half a step behind Lucia, who was standing next to her.

Audrey peered out from behind Lucia for another look over at Percy. He was laughing at something the scarred man had said. Her face turned pink, had a really nice profile and an easy smile.

It was easier to show what little courage she had in more dire circumstances where she had no other choices open to her. Maybe coming here was a mistake…

Lucia was sipping on a glass of water next to her while she got her own bearings, she stepped sideways, leaving Audrey exposed. Audrey glanced up at her and caught her looking between her and Percy with a smug, catlike smile.

Damn.

Audrey was long familiar with that look.

Lucia's smile fell as she sighed heavily and her hand came up to cover her face dramatically. Her voice was a low whisper, only discernable to Audrey's ears. "You do that with every bloke you like."

"What thing?"

"The staring, the trying to hide behind me bit. Don't deny it Audie; I have known you too long for you to try and lie about it."

"Please don't call me Audie."

"For crying out loud, you know him! He's was your card partner when we went to Piper's last night!"

"We drew straws! Felix said something about making it harder for the really smart people to pair off."

"Didn't help much, that room was full of brilliant people and Felix still got his arse kicked. " Lucia's eyes rolled as she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "We promised to be spinsters together, remember? Not chaste."

"We were twelve and boys were still gross."

Lucia cackled. "I am so glad you helped me escape my arranged marriage."

"Me too," Audrey grinned, "Left him standing at the alter right?"

"With his Death Eater mates watching his eventual humiliation."

Audrey's mouth fell open, "You never told me that bit!"

"Didn't I?"

"No!"

"That sham wedding was full of You-Know-Who's lackeys. It was a pleasure to beat the hell out of them when we went on the run."

Lucia was not wrong in that regard; she definitely enjoyed that part of their time on the run and beat her cousin Dominicus quite badly when they crossed paths with some help from Audrey. Lucia continued reminiscing while Audrey tuned her out to think about that book on Magical Deficiencies that Percy had loaned her a few days ago.

"Hell, there's the boss! Well, that makes it harder to drink tonight."

" _What!"_ Audrey peered around Lucia to see more friends of the Weasley family coming in the door. Including an older woman holding a blue haired baby standing next to the Minister of Magic.

Why did that baby have blue hair?

Audrey pressed herself further back against the wall; Shacklebolt had been asking her about joining his city council as Scully's understudy. Scully said he had joined under duress as once the Minister, an ex-Auror stepped into his pub, his business cleared our so quickly it was like they were never there at all. Scully said when he found out who put him name forward, tabs were getting closed. Audrey had not given Shacklebolt an answer yet and he was getting insistent about it. It was very annoying.

Shacklebolt had also informed her that the Committee of War Crime Clemency, due to a lack of file, had cleared her records. When they opened it, it was nothing but blank papers, so anything anyone had said she was involved in could be considered hearsay. Shacklebolt thought it was very strange as there had been detailed information in there but he had more important things to deal with then misplaced paperwork. Shacklebolt definitely knew she had done something to it. She was impressed the spell worked really. Though he may use his suspicions as leverage to get her on the council, she had time to think her way out of it.

"How do you feel right now?" Lucia asked, pulling Audrey out of her thoughts. Lucia looked at Audrey with her eyes full of a sisterly concern as she turned to hide her from Shacklebolt's view for a few moments.

"Like a frumpy… thing."

Lucia chuckled, "For the record, you are my favorite frump."

Audrey put her face in her hands and tried to remember how many glasses of wine it would take to put her down for a nap. It was less then three…

Lucia looked back over to George and his brother on the couch. The brother that Audrey did not know was now showing off his muscles as a playful threat to his brother after the goblet started spewing water like a fountain with enough force to throw itself into the kitchen.

The man with the burn scars laughed loudly at the sudden screams and shouts from the kitchen. Molly Weasley was shouting irately as she tried to subdue to goblet. George took off for another part of the house cackling in a way that reminded Audrey of Peeves.

Lucia's face lit up. "I love men with muscle! I bet he has the rippling pectorals to match!" Lucia popped open the top two buttons on her robes and scampered off faster then Audrey could say Quidditch. She was lost to Audrey's sight in the surge of new arrivals who did as most people did, passed there eyes right over Audrey and went on about their business with their own people as the chaos continued from the kitchen.

Audrey pressed herself back against the wall and felt like everything was closing in around her. She kept her back to the wall as she moved towards the back door for a bit of fresh air. Sometimes, she was grateful to not be noticed.

She crossed her arms to check her wand holster on her left arm. Audrey doubted she would ever feel safe enough to walk around unprepared for battle like she did before the war. She would always have her wand with her anyway; Audrey was very reliant on her magic.

The door closed behind her and she took a deep breath of fresh air. The garden was wild looking and seemed to have no planning behind it, but it was the most natural garden she had seen in a long time. If Audrey ever got to move out of the city, she decided she wanted a similar one behind a small country house where she would live in peace.

Truthfully, Audrey no care to fight anymore, she was just tired of it. Septimus said she was a good duelist, but she never enjoyed it the way he seemed to as a battle mad old warlock. It was a means to an end for her survival. War turned decent people into monsters, it was hard to think back on the person she had to become.

Audrey did not like that woman much.

Now, that the war was over, Audrey had an opportunity to have the life she wanted, a quiet one where she could live in peace. Some notable heroes from the conflict were being pulling into Ministry work and pestered at almost every opportunity for elbow rubbing. The idea of that much attention and scrutiny made her feel ill.

If Audrey had her way, history would forget her wartime achievements and remember only her trail of research papers and discoveries she left behind at the end of her life, because great power of any sort had never made anyone in her acquaintance truly happy.

"Audrey," A voice said from behind her causing her to jump. She turned around quickly, instinctively reaching for her wand.

Morgana's knickers, it was Ron.

Nosy little blighter.

Audrey's hand fell away from her holster under her sleeve.

"You said you would teach me one of your tracking spells if I could teach you something in exchange." Ron had to duck down to make sure he did not hit his head on the doorframe as he stepped out and closed the door behind him. "I'm ready."

Not one to skate around a point was he?

"Depends on what you have to offer, I don't deal in dark magic for example."

Ron grinned, "This is just the opposite." He pulled a small card out of his pocket and held it out to her. There was dirt on his nose.

Audrey blinked owlishly as she reached out for it. She turned it over carefully and laughed.

That was what he was offering?

"It's my mum's secret recipe for treacle tart."

It was! Audrey laughed harder; she struggled to catch her breath. "You're exchanging your mum's recipe for my magical knowledge?"

Ron grinned, "You never specified it was _magic_ I had to trade."

Troll boogies! He was right!

"And it's a favorite of one of my brothers."

Audrey felt her face turn some kind of luminescent shade at the implication.

"Well?"

Audrey sighed, "I should really watch what I say about things like that."

Ron chuckled. "I thought about trying to teach you the patronus charm, but I'm not the teacher Harry is and mine isn't fully formed. I was afraid you knew it already."

She didn't actually. Septimus had tried to teach her but it was just a dull mist in comparison to his peregrine falcon that seemed to laugh at her from the trees. Septimus said she would produce one eventually. Audrey was not convinced, as it was hard to find joy in a chaotic life.

Audrey was not going to tell Ron any of that.

Knowledge of magic was supposed to be something shared, it was a philosophy of magical research. Ron might be able to learn what she could teach. Her tracking spells after all were not a Septenary secret; they were part of Audrey's grimoire, she could teach them or hide them, as she liked.

"Take out your wand, Ron. I'll start teaching you the one that I know works."

Audrey watched his eyes light up in excitement.

As she corrected his grip and explained what the spell did, she had a few final pressing thoughts. She invented these spells to track people who were dangerous to her cause, to find people who had hurt her family; perhaps it was time to use them to bring justice to the wider community.

She may never sleep without nightmares again, but she could save others from that burden. This would be her first act of real restoration, her part in putting an end to this cycle of violence that had plagued the world for so long.

Life could start anew.

* * *

In life, there were choices. Some could make them on their own power; others let choices be made for them if they were unsuspecting or weak. It was a cycle as all things were.

The guards had been put in a twilight state between waking and dreaming allowing her to slip by without questions or interruptions. Her face was hidden by a hood and a white mask around her eyes, her heels clicked and echoed down the stone corridor of the holding cells.

She ignored the snores of those awaiting trial in the cells around her. The one she was looking for was in the isolation cell at the end of the corridor.

It had taken too much time to locate him, too much time for him to crack.

Too much time without him dead.

Her pace was steady; there would be no one to bother her tonight.

The hurried whispers of a panicked young man reached her ears as she stopped in front of his cell. Reeve was whispering hurriedly to himself, promising his silence, crafting lies for his next interrogation.

Coward.

"Frank," She purred as she pushed her hood back, "We need to talk."

The young man in the cell froze and turned slowly to face her. The terror in his eyes made her almost feel pity for him.

"My lady," He rushed to her and clutched at the bars, kneeling at her feet in a disgusting display. "How did you get past the guards?"

"Simple, _magic."_ She laughed quietly before fixing him with a cold, steely gaze. "Sergius Sloan killed himself already, Reeve. Why can't you?"

"My lady, I-"

She held up her hand as she gazed down at him.

Reeve was quiet.

"When you agreed to join our cause, you agreed to certain rules about how we conduct our business. When you rose through our ranks for your unique gifts, we clarified what that meant to our organization. You know too much Reeve, the proper thing to do is die."

"Please! _Please, no!"_ The coward was crying, of all things! "I can offer you so much more! All I ask is for another chance to prove myself to you!"

How pitiful.

"I can find another puppet master. Your ability to make simulacrum does not make you indispensable."

Reeve scurried away from the bars like a rat and pressed his back against the far wall, continuing to stare at her as tears streamed down his face. There was nowhere to run or hide.

"You allowed yourself to be manipulated by a feeble old man, Lowell outplayed you before you even stepped onto the board." She scoffed, "You could not even finish off his half trained apprentice. We know the Ministry has the book, but he only let that slip to find the other players and you were stupid enough to fall for it."

"I only did it serve our glorious cause of knowledge!" Reeve sniffled, "To bring about a better world is our destiny!"

The woman rolled her eyes, "You know nothing of destiny."

Reeve whimpered.

The woman pulled out her wand.

"Loose ends must always be tied up, as all things come full circle."

There was a flash of green light.

As Reeve crumpled to the floor, the woman sighed. "Our master sends his condolences, but he does not forgive failure."

Two pawns off the board.

Reeve had served his purpose, now she must find someone more skilled and daring. Simulacrums were difficult to create, and someday, she would need more valuable resources of that nature.

A true puppet master would be difficult to find. It could take years.

There were other factors to consider.

Agrona needed time. Time to gather allies, build their skills and push magic to the very edges of possibility. She turned and began to walk out of the holding cells as her heels clicked on the floor in time with the water from the leaky pipes in the distance.

They had one chance to get it right.

Failure was not an option.

If they had to wait many years to step out of the shadows, so be it.

Wars were best started after years of peace.

After all, life was a cycle and all roads led to death.

* * *

A/N: Lucia's quest for muscle will fail. Hilariously.

I wanted to thank all of you for reading, reviewing and supporting this strange little story. I always try to tell different kinds of stories then what usually comes through the fanfiction circuit, there are some admittedly dark qualities that can be a bit off-putting and there are sometimes no easy or complete resolutions. Especially if there is something that comes up later on, because every story I write is connected somehow.

Now that this is finished, I'm going to go back to editing Book Two of the Lucy series and edit/rewrite Book Three now that my life has settled into a more consistent schedule. Hopefully I can finally finish this project that has been on and off my mind for the last decade, the whole thing has been plotted out and is sitting in the notebook next to me.

I hope to see you all again soon!

* * *

Here are the chapter title notes; the wand woods in the title are representative of characters that appeared in the story.

Holly – Harry Potter

Willow- Ron Weasley

Cedar – Kingsley Shacklebolt

Elm- Frank Reeve

Vine- Hermione Granger

Redwood- Sam Scully

Silver Lime- Lucia Selwyn

Rowan- Audrey Causey

Walnut – Sergius Sloan

Acacia- Percy Weasley

Yew- Unknown

Bonus: Elder- Septimus Lowell


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